CRISIS CUTS TO THE BONE

Atif Parvez, 28, a poultry farmer in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, is a worried man.

- Shubham Shankdhar

Prices of broiler chicken have nearly halved in the state, from Rs 90-110 a kg in December to Rs 50 in early April, first on rumours that chicken meat and eggs caused COVID-19 and later from the lockdown. His costs are around Rs 65 a chicken, including chicken feed and staff wages. “If costs can’t be recovered, what’s the point of running a business?” he asks.

India’s poultry sector is valued at about Rs 80,000 crore (2015-16), according to the Department of Animal Husbandry, and broadly divided into two areas—the organised commercial sector, with about 80 per cent of the market, and the unorganised or ‘backyard poultry’ sector. According to the Livestock Census 2019, India had a poultry population of 851.8 million, of which 534.7 million were commercial poultry and 317.1 million, the backyard variety. Some of the largest poultry-producing states are: Tamil Nadu (120.8 million), Andhra Pradesh (107.9 million) and Telangana (80 million). There are around 30 million farmers engaged in backyard poultry and, overall, the sector employs about 60 million.