October 15, 2010

Sri Lanka supplies eggs to ease shortage

Sri Lanka's Co-operatives and Internal Trade Ministry (MCIT) plans to provide 5 million eggs to the market within the next few weeks to ease the shortage and rising prices in the country.

This action was taken to avoid the upcoming festival season being adversely affected by soaring prices and shortages of eggs in the market, MCIT minister Johnston Fernando said.

Meanwhile, Fernando has informed the Sri Lankan Small and Medium Scale Poultry Farmers Association to take measures to provide nearly 2 million eggs daily to the Co-operative Wholesale' Establishment (CWE) to sell them at lower prices to consumers.

Following the discussion held with the Sri Lanka Small and Medium Scale Poultry Farmers' Association Tuesday (Oct 12), the minister urged poultry farmers not to increase egg prices unnecessarily creating artificial egg shortages in the market targeting the upcoming festive season.

He said that the first stock of the eggs imported from China is due to arrive in the country within the next two weeks. Large quantities of eggs are wasted by braking when they are transported.

Therefore, it is necessary to use plastic containers to pack eggs which will minimise the wastage caused during egg transportation.

The programme of purchasing eggs directly from poultry farmers by sending CWE lorries to their farms across the country and sell them at lower prices to consumers through Economic Centres, Laksathosa outlets and co-operatives island wide is being successfully continued.

Meanwhile, measures will be taken to purchase eggs in large stocks and store them in cold rooms and provide them to bakeries. Eggs stored in cold rooms can be preserved for nearly two months without damaging its nutritional quality.