Pakistan Poultry Association (NZ) Chairman Dr Abdul Karim has stated that the chicken meat prices will start declining within a few days as a huge supply of chicken is expected in the pipeline.
While presiding in a press conference at Lahore Press Club, he said the poultry farmers had been selling their produce below cost for over a year and as a result, 40pc farms which could not afford to suffer any more losses, were forced to close down.
He said poultry farmers lost around Rs40-45 per kg of chicken meat in the past year due to a slowdown in sales. Due to rising energy costs and declining purchasing power of the people, the poultry industry growth has down from 10pc to 2pc currently. Currently, 40pc of poultry farms in Punjab have closed down because of losses.
Poultry meat prices had registered an increase of 400pc in the last 20 years, compared with an 800pc increase in wheat prices and more than 700pc surge in beef and mutton rates, he said.
The industry stakeholders feel that the government’s policies toward the poultry sector tend to lean more on collecting tax revenue instead of creating new jobs and providing inexpensive, quality and healthy food to the people. The consumption of chicken meat is estimated at 8kg per year, far below the 40kg figure in other developing nations.
The poultry sector remains the most orderly branch of the agro-based sectors of Pakistan. The Chairman pointed out that the poultry sector had been serving the nation and providing affordable poultry products to the masses to fulfil the requirements of animal protein. Poultry at present contributes 40pc of the total meat consumption and provides employment and income for about 1.8m people.
