Poultry sector fears chicken dumping from US

Domestic farms produce around 42 million tonnes of chicken a year

The Rs 50,000-crore domestic chicken sector has urged the government to ensure a level-playing field to protect their interests, after the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled India’s ban on import of poultry meat and eggs from the US was “inconsistent” with international norms.

The industry has asked the government to ban import of chicken produced by using genetically modified (GM) corn and soya as feed, or allow import of GM feed for local poultry farmers as well to lower production cost. The ruling covered frozen chicken legs.

The domestic industry said availability of frozen chicken bred using GM soya and corn as feed might have a long-term impact on poultry players.

The landed cost of such imported chicken is substantially lower than the local production cost. While imported chicken is estimated to land at Indian ports at Rs 60-70 a kg, the prevailing price in India is Rs 150-175 a kg. Industry players said 15-20 per cent of the market might be lost to the US chicken, which could hurt the 400,000-odd poultry farmers’ livelihood. Domestic farms produce 42 million tonnes of chicken a year. The chicken legs market in India is pegged at Rs 1,100 crore or 2.2 per cent of the overall chicken industry size.

Balram Yadav, managing director of Godrej Agrovet, said: “There is no level-playing field as on today. Chicken farmers in the US use GM corn and soya as bird feed, which we cannot use. These are cheaper than organic and hybrid varieties, and the cost of chicken production is lower for US farmers. Hence, they can afford to dump cheap chicken and its legs into India. This is hypocrisy of the government.”

However, consumers at the lower end of the pyramid might not be affected. “There will be no major impact on fresh chicken consumers, as the US would bring in only frozen chicken. But it would definitely affect the overall sentiment,” says K G Anand, general manager, Venkateshwara Hatcheries.