Sunday, April 27, 2008

Chicken soars to record high

Chicken soars to record high
eKantipur, 26-Apr08

The price of chicken has soared 20 percent to a record Rs 190 per kilogram within a week in the face of shrinking supplies and rising demand.

Poultry entrepreneurs said production of broiler chicken has gone down sharply due to a government ban on import of parent chicks from major source countries like India where bird-flu was traced a few months back.

Production of broilers and layers across the country has nosedived at least 30 percent, as the shortage of parent chicks in the market deepens, Dr. Til Chandra Bhattarai, a poultry expert told the Post.

Hatcheries breed new chicks from parent chicks to sell to poultry farms, where they are raised for nearly eight weeks before being put on the market. "Shrinking imports of parent chicks, for which Nepal is completely dependent on third countries, has caused an alarming depletion in the stock of chickens at poultry farms," said Dr Bhattrai who is also managing director of the Chitwan-based Pancharatna Poultry Group.

In addition to growing demand for chicken in hotels and restaurants following a revival of the tourism sector, the huge quantity of chicken consumed during the CA polls also helped to widen the already bad mismatch between demand and supply.

As a result of a ban on imports of parent chicks from India, hatchers have been compelled to import parent chicks from other countries, pushing up costs by at least 20 percent, said Tikaram Pokhrel of Nepal Poultry Entrepreneurs Forum.

Nepal imports around 350,000 broiler parent chicks annually for over four dozen hatcheries across the country, he added. Nepali hatcheries are currently importing the parent chicks from Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Australia.

The price of mutton also has gone up, from Rs 330 to Rs 380 per kilo, within a few weeks, as bird flu hit northern India.

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