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KATHMANDU, Oct 7: With rise in production of poultry products, except commercial broilers and broiler chicks, Nepal´s poultry industry is set to witness its total turnover grow by around Rs 9.7 billion in the current fiscal year compared to last year´s figure, shows an estimate unveiled by the poultry entrepreneurs.
Experts involved in the study said rising demands and prices of poultry products and poultry ingredients are the major causes behind such a sharp expansion of turnover of the industry.
Dr Til Chandra Bhattarai, a poultry researcher, who also headed the recent study, said despite adverse condition in poultry production, overall poultry sector is going to register around Rs 59.69 billion worth of turnover over the current fiscal year 2012/13, up from around Rs 50 billion earlier year.
“Though we have been suffering setback in production of commercial broilers and their chicks and the threats of different diseases, poultry turnover will go up by increasing prices of ingredients and poultry products such as eggs and chicken,” Bhattarai told Republica on Saturday.
Bhattarai, who is also the president of World Poultry Science Association-Nepal Chapter, said fearing loss poultry broiler farm owners were still reluctant to increase the number of commercial broilers as chicken were more perishable compared to eggs if abnormal situation arose.
The report´s data also states that total turnover of chicks, feeds eggs, meat and manure under the commercial layers and broilers segments is expected to reach Rs 23.56 billion and 33.21 billion during the year 2012/13 respectively. Similarly, feeds and meat of layers and broiler parents are estimated to worth around Rs 193.15 million and Rs 2.21 billion during the year.
Bhattarai said number of commercial broilers- the main source of chicken (meat) for market, is estimated to drop to 74.87 million heads during the fiscal year 2012/13 from 76.06 million recorded during the earlier year.
Consequently, chicken (meat) production also going to decline to 132.17 million kg during the review period compared to 132.35 million kg earlier. Similarly, production of broiler chicks is expected to dwindle to 78.87 million from 80.09 million over the year.
However, population of commercial layers, broiler parents and layers parents is estimated to go up to 10 million, 1.13 million and 0.12 million heads during the review year from 8.31 million, 1.11 million and 0.1 million heads last fiscal year respectively.
Production of layers chicks is also expected to increase to 7.76 million heads from 6.99 million. Production of eggs and feeds also going to increase to 1.7 billion units and 0.78 million tons during the current fiscal year from 1.49 billion units and 0.75 million tons respectively.
“Not only the volume of major poultry products including ingredients, their soaring prices in domestic market in response to international price phenomenon are the key reason to push up the volume of poultry turnover,” said Bhattarai, who is also central president of Nepal Feed Industries.
Nepal is highly dependent on major ingredients of poultry feeds such as maize, soya cake, sesame cake, sunflower cake, soybean mill and bone mill, among others which are imported to cater the growing domestic demands.
For example, according to latest report prepared by poultry entrepreneurs, prices of soy cake and maize have gone up to Rs 78 and Rs 23 per kg from Rs 33 and Rs 18 per kg respectively. Similarly, feed price also increased to Rs 48 per kg from Rs 36 per kg over the year. “As feed cost alone contributed about 80 percent in egg and 64 percent in broiler production, any upheaval in feed prices will impact the price of poultry products,” he added.
Besides, increasing cost of production, continued threats of viral, bacterial and fungal diseases in the farms have emerged as the major challenges in the poultry sector that has already seen investment of over Rs 32 billion and is providing employment to over 100,000 people.
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