Farmers seek govt intervention to fix chicken, eggs prices

Industry Desk: Farmers of the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Association (BPIA) sought government intervention to fix the price volatility of broiler chicken and eggs across the country.
Khandakar Md Mohsin, secretary general of the association, raised the demand during a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity yesterday.
The farmer leaders there said that currently, the production cost of broiler chicken per kg is Tk167, whereas farmers are selling it at Tk190-200. However, chicken meat is being sold in the Dhaka markets at a price of up to Tk240. They claimed that this price is not reasonable.
On the other hand, the production cost of each egg is Tk11.71, whereas the farmers are selling at Tk9.45. This is not a reasonable price either. To resolve this situation, the farmers demanded government interference to fix a reasonable price for chicken and eggs.
Mohsin further said, “In the post-Covid period, people are dissatisfied with the increasing prices of eggs and chicken while prices of all commodities are on the rise due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Many farmers have stopped production due to a lack of fair prices. Currently, 95,523 farms are operational out of 1.58 lakh farms and the rest have been shut down, racking up losses.
As a result, the daily production capacity of chicken has decreased from 5,273 metric tonnes to 4,219 metric tonnes. Thus, meat production has decreased by 25.71%. Similarly, egg production has decreased from 6.64 crore per day to 4.32 crore pieces, resulting in a 25% decrease.”
“Farms are closing due to long-term losses. The ones that remain now are earning some profits. The price in the market is not reasonable, and we want this instability to go away,” he demanded.
In this regard, the Price Fixation Committee of 2010, headed by the director general of the Department of Livestock Services, has been requested to fix reasonable prices at least twice a month taking into account the cost of production. This will bring stability to the market, he hoped.
However, farmer leaders claimed that although there was a committee in 2010 to determine the prices, that committee has become ineffective.
The senior vice president of the association Khandaker Monir Ahmed said, “If the farmer sells the meat at a profit of Tk10-15 over the production cost of chicken, it will be a reasonable price. Also, farmers can survive on a profit of 20-25 paisa over the production cost of eggs. Government intervention is needed to resolve the issues.”
“Prices of poultry feed, electricity, medicine and other necessities are very high now. The government should analyse how pricing should be done through a specialised committee,” he concluded.