The Qatar FIFA World Cup is here.
As Qatar is preparing to host football fans from across the globe, chicken farmers from Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, have played a small part in it by shipping five crore eggs for the preparation of meals. Of the five crores, two crore eggs were sent in the last two years alone. The egg delivery will go on till January 2023.
This is a relief for chicken farmers who were struggling for a while as the shelf-life of chicken eggs was reduced from six to three months. This, coupled with reports of bird flu in different parts of India, had adversely affected the export of eggs. In 2007-2008, about 15 crores of eggs were exported from Namakkal to 11 countries such as Gulf Countries, Africa and Afghanistan.
Exploiting the bird flu situation in India and World Cup, Turkey, another global egg exporter, doubled the price of chicken eggs. This has persuaded Qatar to rely on India. Officials of the Namakkal Egg Production and Sales Association demanded that the central and state governments should issue bird flu-free certificates to avoid a further crisis in egg export.
Can Kerala achieve a similar feat? Although Kerala has poultry farmers, it would be impossible to replicate a success like this. In Kerala, poultry farming is a small business. Kerala depends on Tamil Nadu to meet the bigger chunk of requirements for eggs. Only a small portion of our egg consumption is met in Kerala. It is difficult to do large-scale egg production in Kerala as we lack enough land and employees. In Tamil Nadu, it is different. The cost for the poultry business is less and they have access to essential elements for poultry feed. whereas Kerala has to depend on Tamil Nadu even for poultry feed. It is also not advisable to stock poultry feed due to humidity in Kerala.
