Bangladesh poultry production in rapid decline
In Bangladesh poultry production has fallen by nearly 18% in the last nine months, according to the Poultry Industries Protection National Council.
The poultry sector in the country blames the significant decline on the increase in poultry feed prices, the governments failure to provide incentives to the sector, low market price of poultry products and bird flu.
Chicken farming output in June, 2010 was 1.95mn kg a day while in December it declined to around 1.7mn kg a day and in March the level came down to nearly 1.6mn kg, said leaders of the council, citing reports from markets and their 64 district and 490 sub-district units.
They said that egg production was 27.5mn a day in June 2010, 26mn a day in December, 2010 and in March, 2011 it was reduced to 23.5mn a day. There were around 114,000 poultry farms across Bangladesh in June, 2010, 98,000 in December, 2010 with the number now at around 75,000, according to figures from the council.
“The price of poultry feed has increased by 30% in last six months while farmers have to endure a loss of 1.50 taka per egg and around 25 taka per kg of broiler,” said council general secretary Khandokar Mohammad Mohsin, who is also critical of the government’s failure in tackling bird flu and the decreasing amount of compensation following the culling of infected birds.
