Production of broiler chicken and eggs has dropped by around 35 to 40 percent over the last two months since the first case of bird flu in January 17 in Jhapa district.
Dr Til Chandra Bhattarai, the former president of Nepal Poultry Entrepreneurs Forum said production of broiler chicken has dropped to 0.6 million heads from about one million heads per week. "Eggs production also fell to 0.7 million pieces per week from 1.1 million," Bhattarai told Republica.
Import of parent chicks nose-dived by one-third after Nepal imposed ban on the import of poultry products from India following the frequent cases of birdflu in India.
Nepali hatcheries are compelled to import parent chicks from overseas countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, New Zealand, the UK, Australia, Sri Lanka, the USA, and France. From parent chicks hatcheries breed chicks to sell them to farmer for commercial farming.
"Import of parent chicks from third countries is lengthy and risky process as chicks are required to be delivered from export points to hatcheries of importing country within 24 hours. Arranging flight schedule to transport chicks is very difficult," said Bhattarai, who is also the managing director of Pancharatna Group, a leading poultry farm headquartered in Chitwan.
To make the situation worse, farmers are not showing interest to place fresh demands for parent chicks following the detection of bird flu in Jhapa. Poultry farms are not keeping sufficient number of chickens due to fear of possible attack of bird flu in other parts of the country. “
Entrepreneurs have estimated that production of chickens has fallen to 1.2 million kg per week from 1.8 million chicken kg few months ago.
Shortfall in the supply of chicken and eggs in the market due to low production for last few months has prompted producers to raise the price of those products. After sharp drop in the prices during the time of bird flu spread, prices of chicken and eggs went up again with the poultry business gradually bouncing back to normal. “
"We have seen no possibility of drop in the prices of chicken and eggs within four or five months as most of the poultry farms are maintaining the stock of chicken which is at least 30 percent less than the stock in normal ”ime," said Bhattra who is also a poultry researcher.
During normal times estimated three million layers and 9.5 million broilers were used to be kept in 500 layer farms and 2,000 broilers farms across the country.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
Related story
Poultry farmers shift to other professions as shortage of chick...
