Poultry farmers raise price as Indian cattle supply short

Badrul Ahsan | Published: June 23, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Poultry farmers have hiked chicken prices taking advantage of supply shortage of Indian cattle in the country after restriction on informal export, known as "corridoring".
Farmers now sell Tk 155-60 per kilogram for one of the popular varieties of animal protein at farm gate, which was only Tk 150 to Tk 110 a few months back. Â
On Monday, retailers were selling each kilogram of chicken meat at Tk 170-Tk 175 in city kitchen markets, which was Tk 150-Tk 155 early this month.
Industry leaders and retailers are blaming each other for theÂ price hike in poultry birds.
They also expressed their fear that price might increase further ahead of holy Eid if the government does not intervene now as demand for chicken would increase further before the festival due to scarcity of beef and mutton.
Secretary General of Bangladesh Poultry Industry Association M. R. Khan said poultry farmers are recouping their losses as they were forced to sell birds at throwaway prices early this year owing to political unrest.
Prices of all types of poultry feed increased by more than 15 per cent in the last one year alone, but the farmers had to sell their chickens at throwaway prices due to political unrest.
"Farmers did not increase price abnormally, they increased by around Tk10 to Tk 15 per kg," he added.
"Slight increase in prices should not be seen as unjustified. Otherwise farmers will not be able to survive," he said.
He claimed retailers in most cases have increased prices as consumers are buying more chicken, fearing further price surge.
"Retailers are the main culprit behind abnormal price hike," Mr Khan said.
However, according to data available with the National Board of Revenue (NBR), around 2.2 million of cattle usually enter Bangladesh from neighbouring India.
But the cattle corridoring from India has come down by more than 80 per cent in the last six months, which resulted in price hike in all types of beef, mutton and chicken across the country.
India, being a Hindu-majority country, cannot export cows on religious ground. But Bangladesh and India has managed to trade cattle under an unwritten agreement.
Indian traders push cattle to Bangladesh and the Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB) block those in an area and afterwards local people take the ownership of those giving a certain fee to the NBR.
Thus both sides have been doing cattle business for a long time, but in the last few months the central government of India issued an order to the BSF to stop cattle smuggling as the cow is regarded as sacred by the Hindus.
"At any cost, cows must not be slaughtered for beef and therefore should not be allowed to cross over to Bangladesh both in formal (export) and in informal (smuggling) ways," the order said.
Since Bangladesh has scarcity of cattle heads, the price of beef has gone up to Tk 380 to Tk 400 a kilogram from Tk 280 in just five months ago.
Bangladesh is unable to meet its domestic demand for beef as supply of cattle is not significantly high.
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