October 9, 2012

Kuwait's poultry farm owners are suffering from various problems and challenges during work, especially with regard to the rise in production costs.

This is according to Hamid Al-Wuhaib, Chairman of the Board of Al-Wuhaib Poultry Company. He said this forced them to borrow from banks, adding that they asked concerned officials many times including those at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR), to pay attention to their problems and concerns and try to solve them, or at least to treat them equally with local farms but there was no response.

He said officials are still slacking and negligent towards their duties although the poultry is considered one of the main pillars of food security, considering the huge amount of eggs that they supply to the local market. Meanwhile, Abdelaziz Al-Sarraf Chairman of Al-Mubarakiya Poultry Company, which produces 700 cartons of eggs daily said poultry farms are suffering because of the lack of soy feed for birds. He said it must be imported, especially from India, where prices went up recently from KWD70 (US$249) to KWD250 (US$890) per tonne.

He said egg production costs multiplied by 300% during the past three years all over the world, including feed, medicine, cardboard and plastic etc. This prompted all producing farms to raise the price of eggs by a high percentage in order to cope with the price rise. Al-Sarraf said when local farms wanted to raise the price of eggs, cooperatives launched a campaign against them and accused them of seeking high profits at the expense of consumers.

He asked if it was realistic to reject raising the price of eggs by any percentage, without presenting realistic solutions or subsidising producing farms which are now unable to bear the burden of production costs. Al-Sarraf said they should have worked on subsidising local poultry farms without middle men, cancelled profit margins and not demand eggs free of charge. Poultry farming expert Mohammad Al-Furaih said they should support the poultry industry and eggs production in Kuwait, starting with monitoring feed prices, adjusting eggs sale price in cooperatives based on feed costs, while cooperating with the commerce and industry ministry as well as PAAFR to supply poultry feed at suitable prices to producing farms.