October 18, 2022

 

Poultry farmers in Egypt cull chicks due to feed shortage

 

 

Egyptian poultry farmers are culling their chicks because of a feed shortage, resulting in higher chicken and egg prices and a worsening food crisis in the country, the Middle East News Agency reported.

 

Egypt has tightened import restrictions due to a lack of dollars, of which only about US$32 billion are still in its bank accounts. Banks have stopped issuing letters of credit needed to release shipments of corn and soya beans, the two main components of chicken feed, that are being held up at ports.

 

Mohamed El Shafei, the president of Egypt's Poultry Producers Union, said that farmers were choosing to kill chickens instead of keeping them because doing so had become very expensive, which had reduced the nation's supply of poultry.

 

On social media, videos showing farmers killing dozens of chicks sparked outrage.

 

In order to feed Egypt's chickens, El Shafei said that 500,000 tonnes of imported corn and half that amount of soy beans were needed each month.

 

He said the union would need US$340 million each month to import that much.

 

El Shafei defended the farmers' choice to kill the chicks, saying that prices had been steadily rising for months and that, despite what viewers on social media might think, poultry producers had been trying fruitlessly to put off the decision for months.

 

He urged the government to provide the funds required to import the chicken feed, pointing out that any significant closures would have a disastrous impact on Egypt's unemployment rate because the poultry industry employs about 10% of the country's labour force.

 

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly issued a statement following a meeting of the special committee formed to address the chicken feed crisis, ordering weekly coordination with the union for the release of "a specific amount of feed to be released weekly, and for there to be a mechanism to monitor how that amount is distributed.

 

The Prime Minster said since the beginning of the month, 122,000 tonnes of soya have been released from ports. The government was making every effort to ensure that critical supply chains, such as those for chicken feed, are not significantly disrupted, but the Russia-Ukraine war is to blame for the global increase in food prices.

 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which kept tourists at home under lockdown orders, one of Egypt's main sources of foreign currency, Egypt's foreign reserves have decreased.

 

The Russia-Ukraine conflict, which drove up global prices for wheat and oil, exacerbated the nation's economic crisis. Additionally, the war prevented Russian and Ukrainian tourists, who account for 30% of Egypt's visitors, from travelling there and bringing foreign currency with them.

 

Many central banks, most notably the US, have raised interest rates in response to rising food prices. The hikes are largely to blame for the recent strengthening of the dollar, which has made matters worse for nations like Egypt, which import most of its food and pay for it in US dollars.

 

The nation's finance ministry has taken steps to increase exports in addition to tightening import restrictions in an effort to close the nation's $20 million trade deficit.

 

This year, Egypt imported about US$83 billion worth of goods, with food making up 24% of that total. The nation, whose population recently surpassed 104 million, is also the largest importer of wheat in the entire world.

 

-      Middle East News Agency