Poultry production to catch up with festive season

ANJANA Samarasinghe

POULTRY INDUSTRY: Poultry industry sources told Daily News that the shortage of chicken during the festive season could be met with the available hatcheries. The strike in the Prima poultry farm had a negative impact on poultry production.

Prima provides around nearly one million broiler chicken to the industry but other hatcheries could meet the demand, the source said.

Chairman of the All Island Poultry Owners' Association, D. Wanasinghe said nearly 10% of the small scale poultry farmers kept away from production due to the bird flu fear. Because of this reason poultry production declined, he said.

This will not impact badly on the industry due to stocks being available with large scale companies. These poultry farmers still have not restarted their operations. They hope to restart after the festive season, he said.

Prices of seeds and chicken foods have been stable and the price of a day old chick has come down to Rs 25 from Rs 38.

'Normally demand for eggs increase before the festive season but this year due to bird flu demand moved slowly. Last year during April season a kilo of chicken was sold for Rs 300 to Rs 340 in Nuwara Eliya due to high consumption in those areas, he said.

Today, chicken prices are recorded as Rs 190 to Rs 200 but after the production increase prices will be around Rs 210 to Rs 240.

At present the bird flu fear is moving away from the consumers' mind due to responsible media reports and the demand is rising again, he said.

Sepa Senevirathne from Nugegoda said that she and her family didn't stop eating chicken during the bird flu fear due to reliable media reports. But the prices of chicken and eggs dramatically declined during March and April and now prices have gone up, she said.

Susila Hettiarachchi of Meegoda said that they had stopped eating chicken when there was a bird flu fear and they started to eat chicken once again. She also said that prices of eggs and chicken didn't change even though there is a bird flu fear in the Meegoda area.