Indian poultry industry has begun to cut back production to check falling egg prices on the back of the bird flu outbreak in the country. After the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) notifying India as bird flu hit country, several countries including UAE, which is the major egg customer of India, banned egg imports from the country. Following this, eggs produced started stagnating in the last one week leading to marginal price crash in the local market.
However the industry will not be affected this time as it suffered in the last year when the bird flu hit Maharashtra in February 2006, said Dr D Selvaraj, chairman, National Egg Cordination Committee (Namakal-zone). Now the people have awareness that the bird flu hit in Manipur, which is located in the faraway remote place of northeastern region, will not affect other parts of the country, Selvaraj said.
However the egg prices are expected to decline marginally for a short term but it would stabilise immediately as the industry has chalked out plans to cut the production. The production cut will be mainly in Namakal belt in Tamil Nadu, which accounts for 90% of the egg exports, he added.
Usually, the Indian farms maintain 20-21 crore layer birds, which lay around 15 crore eggs every day. In 2006 when bird flu hit the country, farms have reduced the layer birds to 15 crore birds.
When the country has recovered back to its original production status of 15 crore eggs per day, detection of bird flu in Manipur came as a major blow to the industry, sources added.
Currently the poultry farms in Namakal produce around 2.5 lakh eggs per day by maintaining around 3.5 lakh birds. Generally, new birds are placed instead of old layer birds, which lay eggs for around 72 weeks. But this time Namakal farmers would send layer birds to slaughter homes for culling once it crosses 50 weeks to bring down the egg production, Selvaraj added.
After a few countries banned Indian eggs, egg exports declined by 50% to 25 lakh eggs from 50 lakh eggs per day. In Namakal belt alone, daily more than 20 lakh eggs are stagnating, sources added.