 "Poultry feed manufacturers feel pressure of high feedstock prices")
Rural demand for eggs, broilers and other poultry products are falling due to drought. Raw material cost, largely feedstock, for farmers has risen significantly; their realisations have not improved.
Retail prices of these products have not changed much. Feedstock like soyameal and maize prices have risen 25 per cent in six months. Feed prices are nearly 70 per cent of the total cost in the sector.
Balram Yadav, managing director of Godrej Agrovet, one of the major animal feed producers, with Rs 3,000 crore coming from this segment yearly, told Business Standard: “Animal feed producers are not able to recover their cost, with poultry farmers facing such a bad time. They're either planning to exit or cutting the cost of animal feed.”
Six months ago, ex-farm gate prices (realisations) of broilers were Rs 65 each; it is now Rs 55. There has, however, been a small increase in the farm gate price of eggs.
Mangesh Wange, vice-chairman of CLFMA (earlier the Compound Livestock Animal Feedstock Manufacturers Association) said: “There is shortage of soyameal and the cost has skyrocketed due to fall in the soyabean crop. This being an important ingredient for animal feed, we recommend the government to cut the duty on imported soyameal.”
There is, he adds, oversupply of eggs and broilers. In 2015, egg production is estimated to increase by seven per cent, to 74 million.
As for imports from the US of chicken legs, Wange noted we'd lost one case at the World Trade Organization; an appeal is planned. The US is a consumer of chicken breast; legs are an export surplus there. However, if chicken legs are exported to India, it will further dampen the poultry sector here. “The government should make all efforts to oppose the import,” he said.
THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST
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74 billion
Egg production per annum
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Rs 3.50
Farm gate price per egg
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62 million
Broiler production per week
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Rs 55
Broiler farm gate price per bird, after fall in the past six months
Rise in feedstock prices in the past six months
