Nepali chicken price drops to US$2.87 per kilogramme

Poultry entrepreneurs in Kathmandu, Nepal have further lowered chicken prices from NPR 230 (US$3.08) to per NPR 215 (US$2.87) kilogramme due to oversupply in the market.

A meeting of Kathmandu-based poultry entrepreneurs held a couple of days ago took the decision to lower prices, according to Gokarna Ghimire, president of Poultry Farmers' Association, Kathmandu. Poultry farmers will now get NPR 150 (US$2.01) per kilogramme for live chicken, NPR 10 (US$0.13) per kilogramme less from what they were receiving earlier. Consumers will get live chicken for NPR 160 (US$2.14) per kilogramme.

Feed industries have also lowered the price of Class A feed to NPR 1,475 per 50 kilogrammes from NPR 1,550 per 50 kilogrammes. The price of Class B feed has been lowered to NPR 1,465 (US$19.75) per kilogramme from NPR 1,535 (US$20.55), whereas the price of Class C feed has been fixed at NPR 1,450 (US$19.41) per kilogramme.

Ghimire further complained that farmers were suffering huge losses as hatcheries have yet to lower chick prices even though prices of poultry products have been declining sharply. Hatcheries have been selling broiler chicks for NPR 65 (US$0.87) per head and layer chicks for NPR 70 (US$0.94) per head.

He expected poultry prices to go further down as farmers do not want to keep chicken in farms for long due to high mortality rate during hot summer days.