Angul: The poultry businesses in different parts of the district have been hit hard amid rumours that the novel coronavirus can be transmitted through consumption of chicken. Result: Prices of the bird have fallen by a whopping 70 percent!
Though the Government of India has been making an all-out effort to save the poultry business from the domino effect of COVID-19 outbreak, residents here are in no mood to indulge themselves with chicken.
Social media platforms such as WhatsApp and YouTube are rife with rumours and fake news of chicken being infected with coronavirus. The impact of rumours is such that the government had to intervene last week to allay the fears. The Animal Husbandry Ministry has said that poultry was not found to be involved in the transmission of coronavirus to humans in any report globally.
The financials of Angul district poultry farmers is so bad that they are now resorting to non-conventional and eerie marketing tactics to woo buyers. Residents here said that the farmers are beating drums and announcing ‘exciting offers’, even doling out chickens for free as the demand has hit ‘an all-time low’. However, the residents are difficult to be lured even with free offers.
Notably, Angul district has a sizeable poultry sector; the numbers of chicken farms are more under Bantal and Kanihan police station limits.
More than 30 families in each block are involved in poultry business. The jobs of the families employed in the poultry industry across the district have been impacted.
People are avoiding consumption of meat, fish, chicken, and eggs, and due to the fall in demand, wholesale prices of chicken have dropped by as much as 70 per cent. As a result, chicken is now available at Rs 20-60 per kg in retail compared with Rs 180-200 earlier.
More than ten companies which were providing chicken feeds, like Pasupati Feeds, have incurred a huge loss as the poultry farms do not have enough liquidity to purchase the feeds.
Sources said Pasupati Feeds has incurred Rs 18 crore loss this month while other companies have incurred losses of more than Rs 10 crore.
Pasupati Feeds’ Angul branch manager, Ramakanta Swain, said, “Due to the fear of spread of COVID-19 infection, people in the district are not ready to buy the chickens. For which, our company has been incurring losses.”
Subhas Khalanga, a poultry businessman, said that poultry men are getting just Rs20 per bird in the market, whereas the cost of production or maintenance runs beyond Rs 80. “It is very difficult to feed our birds after bearing losses,” added Subhas.
A chicken farmer of Mahidharpur said, “I reduced the price of chickens to Rs 20 (per kg), but no one came to purchase them. Even when I go out beating the drums across many villages, then also it bears no fruit.”
For the poultry sector, which reeled under the impact of high feed costs last year due to surge in maize prices, the coronavirus dealt an indirect blow at the beginning of the year. This could prolong the recovery in the poultry sector, despite the prices of maize, the key ingredient in poultry feed, having come down by about a fourth over last year’s levels.