Rising demand due to the ongoing festival season along with gradual onset of winter in several parts of the country has resulted in sharp rise in demand for poultry products.

The rising demand, coupled with stable feedmeal prices?in anticipation of fall in soyameal rates?has pushed up the margins of thousands of poultry traders across India.

According to Poultry Federation of India (PFI), poultry feed, a mixture of soymeal and corn has stabilised at around Rs 16,500 per tonne since the last few weeks as against a high of Rs 19,000 per tonne in August, largely because of flat soyameal and corn prices.

In the wholesale markets of Delhi, soyameal prices have been stable at around Rs 17,600 per tonne while corn prices have also remained flat at around Rs 10,280 per tonne.

Poultry traders said, their margins have improved as though feedmeal prices have been largely stable since the last few months, whole prices of live weight broiler has increased to Rs 70 a kg from Rs 60 a month back, while egg prices have jumped by around 15% in Delhi to Rs 2.5 per piece at the wholesale market.

?We expect margins to improve further as demand is expected to rise during winter months,? Ricky Thapar, spokesperson, PFI told FE, adding that after months of volatility both in feed prices and demand, we (poultry traders) have been getting reasonable returns since last fews weeks.

However, many poultry traders are skeptical as to how long they can expect their margin to remain healthy as soymeal prices are projected to rise because of low bean output.

In a recent statement, Indore-based Soyabean Processors Association of India estimated that the country?s soyabean production in 2009-10 (October-September) might fall by 10% to 9.7 million tonne despite marginal rise in acreage, as delay in onset of southwest monsoon over main soyabean growing states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan could impact yield.

In its first estimate for the current year soyabean crop, SOPA said that total area under soyabean this year is expected to be around 9.6 million hectare, marginally more than last year?s acreage.

With the soybean crop has already started to arrive at processing plants, poultry industry says fresh soyameal would arrive in the market by middle of November.

India ?s poultry industry consumes close to 15 million tonnes of feed annually which is valued at around Rs 15,000 crore.

India is fifth ranked broiler producer in the world with an estimated production of 2.3 million tonne of broiler meat per annum.