INDIA’S POULTRY SECTOR DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPECT:

India is the world second largest developing economy, now has a large andrapidly expanding poultry sector. India is the sixth largest country in poultry meat production. With a population more than 1 billion and per capita income now growing 3-4% annually India constitutes a large. Since 1970 global production, consumption, and trade of poultry has grown faster than any other meat.Growth in india’s poultry sector is mainly due to structural change in poultry sector i.e. integrated farming. Other factors which enhanced growth in poultry sector are increase in income level of people, urbanization, easily availability of feed etc. Production systems are different in different part of country1. In south highly integrated farming2. Western region is slightly integrated3. In northern and eastern region integrated farming is negligible.

Due to integrated farming the cost of poultry production reduced whichlead to more increase in per capita consumption.Other factors whichincrease consumption are-a) increase income level of peopleb) urbanizationc) young population is increasing, who shift from vegetarian to non-vegetarian.

Mainly live birds are consumed. Demand for frozen meat isnegligible and restricted to restaurant and hotels. So poultryMarketed mainly as live bird. Price varies region wise and decidedby committee in south, in west price set by influential group, inNorth price decided according to ghazipur market in Delhi and inEast no centralized price discovery mechanism so prices arevolatile. Highly integrated poultry sector in south limit themarginal cost. Feed like corn and soybeans are easily available .Also withremoval of quantitative restriction and liberalization of cornImports make easy availability of feed. Preference of live bird and lack of cold chain facilities, poor transport limit import of frozen poultry product. There is lots of scope of development in northern, eastern andwestern part of country. Structural change in poultry sector inthese regions will make great impact. Following are the areas whichhas to be improved for further growth in poultry trade-1) Integrated farming in north, east and south2) Improvement of infrastructure like cold chain, transportation facilities and automatic climate control housing3) Disease control and check mortality rate4) Sanitary measure5) Creation of market for chilled and frozen product6) Decrease in cost of feed and improving FCRThe west, east and north will be a key to the future expansion ofIndia’s poultry industry. Income growth and indigenous meatpreference are obviously key elements in gauging potential, but costreducing integration of production and marketing activities can also beimportant in spurring demand and output.

Submitted by: Dewasish Ghoshal. (PGDMA)