The poultry industry in Andhra Pradesh is facing a severe crisis due to abnormally high prices of maize and soyabean, which are used in making the poultry feed. The industry, which provides employment to over six lakh people in the state, is seeking government intervention to bring down the prices of ingredients used in making the feed. Prices of maize and soyameal have doubled even while the selling prices of eggs and broilers have halved due to summer.
The state produces over seven crore eggs a day, which is one-third of country?s egg production, and three crore broilers per month, which is about one-tenth of country?s broiler production. Representatives of AP Poultry Federation (APPF), consisting of more than 25,000 members, mostly who are small and marginal farmers, have made a representation to union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and urged him to take steps to bring down the prices of soyabean, the main feed for broilers. ?The price of soyabean was R18,000 a tonne 45 days ago, but shot up to R32,000, making it unaffordable for the poultry industry,? president of AP Poultry Federation D Sudhakar said.
?For last two years, the poultry sector has been facing severe crisis due to abnormal increase in the prices of feed ingredients ? mainly maize and soya meal ? which are the principal feed ingredients of poultry feed and had led to increase in the cost of production. The price of maize, which was at R700-800 a quintal two years ago has gone up to R1,200 per quintal and that of soya has gone up to R3,600 from R1,400 per quintal,? he said.
This is in spite of good harvest of maize of 22 million tonnes last year and production of 11 million tonnes of soyabean in the country. With the result, the cost of production per egg has increased to R2.75 and that of broilers is R70 per live kg.
According to APPF, the main reason for abnormal increase in the price of soya meal is a chain of exports, especially Iran, which is affecting unnecessarily the prices in domestic market. The traders are taking undue advantage of support of exports and stocking a large quantity of soyabean for speculative prices resulting in its abnormal increase. In reality, the exports of soya meal is more or less the same quantity as last year. The crop had yield bumper harvest in 2011 and availability of soyabean is much higher over the previous year.
Even though there has been a good harvest accompanied by a static growth in the exports, the price in domestic market has skyrocketed, courtesy manipulation by trading with a claim of good price from Iran.
The spurt in price of soya meal has not benefited the soya farmers in any way, as private traders bought the same at low prices in the harvest season and holding and increasing the price in the seasonal months. Thus, the price increase is benefiting only the middlemen, hoarders, and speculators, APPF said. Further, it has also demanded the waiver of the present import duty of 15% on maize imports.
There are over five million small and marginal poultry farmers with a farm capacity of 2,000 birds and less in the poultry sector. Providing damaged wheat, paddy at subsidised rates to poultry farmers in this hour of spiraling prices of maize and soya will ensure their survival and pave the way for sustained growth of poultry in the country.
