Poultry farmers badly hit by demonetisation

Poultry farmers badly hit by demonetisation
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National Egg Co-ordination Committee (NECC) zonal committee chairman Kanakamedala Premkumar said, “The present situation is a death blow to poultry farmers of Andhra Pradesh. Our hopes on running the poultry industry this season were ruined due to the government’s decision of scrapping of high denomination notes.”He said the egg price fell from Rs 4 per egg to Rs 3.30 per egg after Prime Minister

Vijayawada: Poultry farmers are badly hit with sharp fall in egg prices after demonetisation of high denomination notes.Marginal farmers having one lakh hen are losing at least Rs 60,000 a day on sale of eggs and the losses are higher for the farmers having below one lakh hen.With the money transactions becoming difficult across the country due to demonetisation, the egg dealers are refusing to buy eggs from local farmers and they are offering lesser prices than fixed by the NECC.

National Egg Co-ordination Committee (NECC) zonal committee chairman Kanakamedala Premkumar said, “The present situation is a death blow to poultry farmers of Andhra Pradesh. Our hopes on running the poultry industry this season were ruined due to the government’s decision of scrapping of high denomination notes.”He said the egg price fell from Rs 4 per egg to Rs 3.30 per egg after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation on November 8.

Egg packaging and exports were badly affected in the State due to absence of cash transactions. AP traders and dealers export eggs to North Indian States and Gulf countries.He said that one lakh hen can produce 90,000 eggs a day. Farmers having one lakh hen were incurring losses over Rs 60,000 a day, he said. “I have suffered a loss of Rs 30 lakh during the last one week, he said.

The price of egg on October 29 was Rs 3.95 and it has declined to Rs 3.20 on November 10.A farmer, Koteswara Rao of Vijayawada said, “Even if some dealers offer Rs 3.10 per egg it will not be sufficient to meet our expenses. He said Rs 3.40 per egg is a reasonable price.

Dealers demand us to give eggs at a cheaper price when compared to NECC prices.”Premkumar said some farmers sold eggs at a loss of Rs 3 per piece as they could not store them for a long time.There are 5 crore hen in the State. West Godavari tops the State with 1.6 crore hen and East Godavari 1.2 crore.

Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam districts have 1.3 crore hen. The remaining are in other districts.Premkumar said the poultry farmers have been incurring losses for the last two years due to high feed rates and bird flu etc. He said the farmers had expected a good season and that they would earn profits.

He pointed out that the price of soya bean decreased from Rs 50,000 to Rs 25,000 per tonne in two years.He said the farmers imported 5 lakh tonnes of maize from Ukraine for poultry needs.“Besides, the egg consumption would be high in North India in winter season. But, we did not imagine this unexpected crisis,” he said.

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