Normal chicken supplies to resume soon - Poultry Producers Assoc.

Normal chicken supplies to resume soon – Poultry Producers Assoc.

Jul 03, 2010 News

Minister Robert Persaud meets with stakeholders in the poultry industry

The Guyana Poultry Producers Association (GPPA) has given the assurance that the local market for chicken and eggs will return to normal in four to six weeks time. The assurance was given during a meeting yesterday with Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud and poultry producers, feed manufacturers, hatchery owners and other stakeholders who had gathered to discuss issues within the poultry industry.
Minister Persaud told them that the recent increase in the price of poultry meat and eggs is of concern to the government. Guyana has over the past few years achieved self sufficiency in the products, he added.
From time to time the prices go up and this situation causes some concern, he said.
The Minister stated that while there was no need to issue import licences for chicken and eggs over the last two and half years, there is concern that traffic is going the other way, to Suriname and Brazil. He said that the Commerce Ministry was asked by Cabinet to investigate whether there was a shortage and if licences were required for import.
Minister Persaud said that though there was recognition of the need for consumers to have safe poultry products, the local investments needs to be preserved.
“For me, importation is when there is crisis, I am sure we have not reached stage of crisis. But rather what we are experiencing may be cyclical,” he explained, adding that there could also be international factors. He cited the hatching eggs shortage in the United States.
This affected Guyana since most of the hatcheries purchased their hatching eggs from that country.
David Fernandes, board member of the GPPA, said that the local industry has three times the hatching capacity that the nation would consume.
Fernandes explained that the situation in the US began in 2008 with an overproduction of chicken. The demand fell due to the global recession. What breeders did there was cut production.
Fernandes explained that a large number of flocks were destroyed. Since this was the sole source of supply for the Guyana market, when the international price for eggs went up, Guyana paid higher prices for hatching eggs.
“Even though our factories tried to get contractual arrangement for the supply of eggs, they were still limited. To produce chicken is faster than producing eggs,” he explained.
Even though all the hatcheries increased their egg orders and signed long term contract, there was still the issue of hatchable eggs.
“It was here that the merits of air and freight transport were discussed. The forecasting was distorted for the arrival of boats, causing some batches of eggs to become low quality. Air transportation on the other had, ensured that there were better quality eggs delivered.”
Nevertheless, Fernandes says that already the amount of eggs being hatched has already started to make an impact of the market, even though there may still be situations of low hatchability.