Bird flu scare brings down egg, broiler chicken prices

The wholesale egg prices have been fixed at Rs 4.85 paisa per piece, almost 25 paisa lesser from Rs 5.10 by the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) in Namakkal zone. “Even then the poultry farms are selling the eggs for 30 to 50 paisa lesser than the price determined by NECC. But there has been no stagnation of eggs,” said ‘Vangili’ Subramaniam president of Tamil Nadu Egg Poultry Farmers Marketing Society.

Bird flu outbreak has been reported in parts of Kerala prompting authorities to take up culling of ducks and hens within one kilometer radius of the affected areas. Culling of birds is to be taken up to prevent the spread of virus.

Every year, egg sales get sluggish weeks ahead of the Pongal festival. “But unusually, this time around there has been no stagnation of eggs in farms till now despite the outbreak of bird flu. People continue to consume eggs to improve their immunity in view of COVID-19 pandemic,” he added. However, the farmers were forced to sell the eggs only little higher than the production cost of Rs 4 per egg. More than 1,100 poultry farms produce nearly four crore eggs per day in Namakkal zone. Of this, one crore eggs are sent to Kerala. Poultry farmers also sound confident that there is no chance for bird flu to spread in Namakkal due to their strict adherence to safety protocols.

“Poultry farms are disinfected frequently and proper hygienic methods adopted to prevent any outbreak. All vehicles entering a poultry farm were sanitised and workers adopted better hygienic practices,” said S Venkat Kumar, a poultry farmer.

Price of broiler chicken reared in large numbers in Palladam and its surrounding areas in Tirupur district have also dropped drastically due to bird flu scare. The wholesale price of live broiler birds has dropped by Rs 14 from Rs 92 per kg to Rs 78 per kg in poultries in Tirupur, which produces more than 60 lakh kg of broiler chicken every week.