The prices of poultry feed, chicks and medicine keep rising, but the prices of the eggs and chicken farmers produce are not rising to match. Small farmers in Gaibandha are losing money, the poultry industry is heading towards ruin and farms are closing.

Officials at the district livestock office say the industry will survive if the government coordinates with farmers and feed sellers at local level and fixes the prices of everything; otherwise it will be destroyed.

According to the district livestock office, Gaibandha had 2,800 commercial farms two months ago. Since then, 800 have closed.

Farmers said those who had taken loans from private NGOs are in trouble now that their farms have shut.

Khalilur Rahman, a former union parishad member in Beyali village of Gaibandha Sadar upazila, set up a poultry farm with 2,000 birds about two years ago. Unable to keep up with feed prices, he sold all his birds about a month ago, and his farm now has none.

He told Jagonews: "Three months ago I bought feed at Tk 2,200 a sack. Now I have to pay Tk 3,500 for the same feed. Medicine and vaccine prices have also gone up." Unable to survive the race of rising feed prices, small and medium poultry farms are closing at a loss, he said.

Shahidul Islam and Nurun Nahar say the same. Shahidul said: "I've shut my farm; it doesn't pay any more. The way prices of everything are rising, if the government doesn't act in time, Gaibandha's poultry industry will be destroyed, and the few farms still running will gradually close too."

Nurun Nahar Begum, wife of Raja Mia of the same village, said: "I've been running a poultry farm for 15 years. Forget profit, I've lost everything I had. My husband has had to leave home because of the pressure of debts. He's going to Chittagong to work as a labourer."

Another farmer, Najibul Haque Naim of Niler Bhita village in Udakhali union of Fulchhari upazila, set up a poultry farm after graduating. He started about five years ago with 1,000 birds and later raised 3,000. He now has 1,800. With monthly feed and medicine costs higher than his income, he can no longer cope.

Najibul Haque said Fulchhari upazila has more than 250 farms, and at most 20 farmers in all have restocked. The government must lend a hand to keep the poultry industry alive, he said.

Farmers say everything used in poultry farming has to be imported, and the government must make sure traders cannot set prices as they please. That would save the industry from ruin.

On rising feed prices, Titu Mia, owner of Titu Poultry Feed in Gaibandha, said the prices of almost all products, including soybean meal, have risen on the international market, and this has affected the domestic market. "Traders like us can do nothing. Having bought at high prices, we can't sell at a loss," he said.

District livestock officer Masudar Rahman told Jagonews that the poultry industry meets the lion's share of the country's nutrition and protein needs, and if it is destroyed there will be a shortage of nutrition and protein. "We have no power to raise or lower poultry feed prices. If policymakers fixed the prices of everything in coordination with consumers, farmers and feed traders, the poultry industry could be saved from ruin," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.