Bird flu scare leaves poultry business in Andhra Pradesh dire straits

The avian flu scare in Andhra Pradesh has resulted in a drop in the consumption of chicken and eggs, severely impacting the poultry business.

The avian flu scare in Andhra Pradesh has resulted in a drop in the consumption of chicken and eggs, severely impacting the poultry business.

In NTR district, around 7,000 broiler chicks, belonging to a farm at Anumollanka village, have died in the past two days, triggering fears of bird flu in Vijayawada.

However, the impact of the fear is not uniform across the city. Some shops claim that there is no change in the demand for chicken, while some others say there has been 50% drop in the footfall of customers in the past one week.

The RR Chicken Centre, a major retail shop in the city, says it has not registered any change in the demand for chicken.

But for Uma Maheswara Rao, who sells chicken and mutton in Ayyappa Nagar, the impact is more. “Two days ago, we decided to stop the sale of chicken lest the demand for mutton too would go down. Now, more customers are coming to buy mutton. But we have not increased the prices,” he says.

In other places in the city, chicken prices have dropped by ₹30 to ₹50 per kg, while the prices of mutton have increased by up to ₹100. At present, a kg of mutton is being sold at around ₹900 while chicken is being sold at around ₹220 per kg, with a drop of ₹30 from last week.

According to Andhra Pradesh Poultry Federation vice-president T. Kutumba Rao, the average drop in chicken prices in the State stands between ₹25 and ₹30 per kg.