Chandigarh, Apr 16 (KNN) Poultry farmers in Punjab and Haryana are facing a twin problem of increase in feed cost and low return on eggs.  There has been a sharp increase of 15-20 per cent in feed cost along with a drop in egg price by one rupee per egg in the last few weeks.
 
Poultry feed contains ingredients such as maize, bajra, soya extracts, groundnut extracts, rapeseed extracts, deoiled rice bran, and small amounts of certain other components. The increased prices of all these commodities have made poultry farming less profitable, said a media report quoting a farmer.
 
Significantly, small poultry farmers have incurred huge losses.
 
“Poultry farmers have to bear loss of Rs 0.5 on each egg by selling it at Rs 2.5 per piece.  So, a farmer having a production capacity of 100,000 eggs is losing Rs 15 lakh per month,” the report added.
  
The report said supply has outgrown demand owing to the mushrooming of poultry farms in the region in the past few years.  Farmers were therefore, not able to pass on the increase in cost to wholesalers. Hence small and marginal farmers who cannot sustain losses for long periods were planning to sell their birds to cut capacity.
 
Their markets for poultry are Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. (KNN)