The Indian poultry industry needs to ramp up growth to meet soaring domestic demand for broiler meat, which is expected to rise at around 18% over medium-to-long term, international credit agency ICRA has said.
ICRA's assessment based on industry feedback indicates that domestic broiler meat demand is expected to grow at around 15-18%, while that of eggs is tipped to rise at 5-7% over medium-to-long term, an International Credit Rating Agency (ICRA) statement said.
The Indian poultry sector has been growing at around 8-10% annually over the last decade and at more than 15% in the last three years, it added. Maturing from a backyard activity to a large-scale integrated business, India's domestic poultry market size is currently estimated at more than Rs 47,000 crore.
The growth trend is likely to continue for the present decade, as demand has been growing steadily on the back of favourable socio-economic factors like healthy GDP growth, rising purchasing power, changing food habits and increasing urbanisation, the statement said.
It said the key challenges faced by the industry include high feed costs, combined with a supply shortage of corn, inadequate cold chain and transportation infrastructure, high vulnerability to disease outbreaks like bird flu and highly volatile realisation affecting cash flows.
Globally, India ranks fourth in broiler meat production, with an annual production of 2.9 million tonne (MT). USA and China are the leaders with an annual production of 24 MT and 12.3 MT, respectively.
India is ranked third in egg production after USA and China, with an annual production of 57 billion eggs. South India accounts for more than 45% of the total domestic poultry output, led by the state of Andhra Pradesh. Tamil Nadu leads in terms of poultry consumption, closely followed by the other southern states.
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Talking about the future challenges for the poultry sector, the ICRA said India needs to double its maize production in the next ten years to meet the growing demand from the feed industry.
India's poultry exports are marginal, with current exports estimated at less than Rs 500 crore annually. India's poultry exports are dominated by table eggs, mainly to West Asia and Africa. Intermittent outbreaks of bird flu in pockets of India since 2006 have hampered exports.
West Asia, Africa and SAARC nations provide strong export potential for the Indian poultry industry, ICRA observed.