Truckers’ stir hits beleagured poultry sector

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New Delhi: The country’s poultry industry, recovering after a fresh attack of bird flu in Assam, has again plunged into gloom due to the indefinite nationwide strike called by trucker operators.

The strike has got thousands of poultry farmers worried about their futures business prospects as most of the birds, eggs and also the feedmeal (soymeal and maize) are transported by small truck operators, who are also participating in the agitation.

Traders said that usually farmers have 10 days of feedmeal stocks with them, but after that the situation could worsen. The truckers are demanding cuts in taxes, tolls and diesel prices. More than 70% of freight in India moves by road, and truckers benefited from a booming economy that required the transport of steel and cement for construction.

But a slowdown in the economy has adversely affected 200,000 transport companies as interest rates on vehicle loans went higher and competition from the railways began to eat into their market share.

Meanwhile, poultry farmers are worried that the prices of soymeal would rise as agri-farmers start using small vehicles instead of trucks to transport ingredients essential for poultry feed. “The prices of meal have already risen to Rs 15,300 per tonne from around Rs 14,200 per tonne a few months ago,” Ricky Thaper, treasurer, Poultry Federation of India (PFI), told FE. He attributed the rise in prices to local traders raising the prices in anticipation of a strike by trucker-operators.

The PFI has asked the government and the truck-operators’ association to exempt trucks carryying poultry and poultry feed from the ax it would have an adverse impact on an industry which was alreay passing through a ‘rough phase’.

“This strike could not have come at a worse time as we are were expecting winter to bring in much needed boost to the industry,” Thapar said. However, he added that all the extra costs would be eventually passed on to the consumer, if the strike prolongs.

Industry sources had earlier said that due to good soybean crop this year, poultry feed prices were down to Rs. 14,000 per tonne from an earlier high of more than Rs 20,000 per tonne.