July 19, 2010

Indian state cuts poultry prices

The Palladam-based Broiler Coordination Committee has chosen to bring down the wholesale price of live-birds from INR52 (US$1.11) last week to INR46 (US$0.98) a kg, to save the poultry farms from possible supply accumulation.

For shell eggs, the Namakkal-based National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) has cut the wholesale rate by 10 paise to INR2.55 (US$0.05) a piece. Industry sources, however, said that the reduction is also partly to pep up the consumption.

NECC's layer rates (for birds of 1.3 kg) have come down this week to INR46 (US$0.98) from INR50 (US$1.06) a kg last week. Namakkal and Palladam prices are the benchmarks for eggs and chicken, respectively in the country.

On the export front, shell egg exports for the month of June from Namakkal stand at 363.69 lakh eggs as against at 562.06 in the same period last year. "This is mainly because of the rising domestic prices that we are losing our competitiveness in the global market to our rival countries in the trade, such as Brazil," said an NECC source.