Pakistan: High energy, feed costs hamper poultry industry

The poultry industry in Pakistan has been hit by high feed and energy costs while the government's policy on import of parent birds, one-day-old chicks and poultry meat also hampers its growth. Former Pakistan Poultry Association chairman Abdul Basit said the cost of breeding chicken rose as prices of soybean meal, used in poultry meal formulation, increased from $200 per ton to $460 per ton in one year. Soybean constitutes 25 per cent of poultry meal. A poultry farmer, Muzaffar Rizvi, said the vaccination cost of broiler chicken, grandparent stock, and one-day-old chicks all have risen. He went on to state the electricity loadshedding had compounded the poultry farmers' problems and the poultry farmers had been forced to install generators to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electricity, adding that such an action would cost a farmer over Rs15 per unit for six to eight hours when supply of WAPDA electricity was disrupted. Basit said Pakistan produced three million chickens with average of one kg meat each and the poultry industry had not been given any protection from imports.

Since import duty was the same on one-day-old broiler chicks, which are produced in great number, as other broiler chickens, he suggested that the duty on one-day-old chicks should be 25 percent in line with duties applied to the import of industrial basic raw material, intermediary products and finished products.