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Saturday 17 June 2023
Jerash: Poultry farms face heavy losses
The lack of demand from distributors, and the lack of high-quality quantities and suitable sizes that cover the market’s needs, due to the daily death of chickens, led to an increase in chicken prices, and the number of poultry farms operating in Jerash governorate decreased from 110 to 40 farms.
The series of successive losses has forced many farmers to close their farms in order to avoid accumulating more debts that are difficult to pay, which many say could lead them to prison.
Farmers confirmed that they were unable to protect poultry from viruses that transmit quickly, killing hundreds of tons per day, while vaccines and vaccinations did not succeed in protecting them.
The price of a kilo of broiler poultry currently in the markets of Jerash, which passes through one of the largest governorates that includes poultry farms, ranges between 175-190 piasters, which are very high prices compared to the economic conditions of citizens, in addition to that these prices are higher than the price ceilings set by the Ministry of Industry and Trade a few years ago. Months at 165 piasters per kilo.
The successive blows to the poultry sector caused crushing and a decline in production by cutting off the livelihoods of hundreds of families working in the poultry production and distribution chain. At a time when the workers constituted less than 2,500 workers, the number decreased to 500 in a sector that is one of the largest working and productive sectors in the governorate, due to the advantages of environmental preservation. Geographical and climatic conditions that suit the profession of poultry farming.
Poultry farmers confirmed that they have been subjected to heavy losses since the beginning of the year due to the infection of poultry with viruses due to the weather changes that the region is exposed to, and the instability of the weather situation and its sudden and unexpected volatility, until the virus turned into a mutated disease that adapts to weather changes and is not resisted by the available vaccines that farmers are keen on. on giving it.
For his part, poultry breeder Ibrahim Aqil, a spokesman for the governorate's farmers, said that the number of farms currently operating does not exceed 40, and they are working to cover part of the accumulated costs and debts, especially since hundreds of tons are spent daily due to viruses and diseases, pointing out that each farm ends. Its production cycle, which lasts 35 days, closes and stops production until weather conditions improve and a small part of its losses are compensated.
And he indicated that the production of farms does not exceed 400,000 poultry birds during one production cycle, while the production was no less than 44 million birds per cycle during the past years, and the market needs 22 million birds per cycle, which was reflected in prices.
He explained that the demand for poultry is modest compared to the needs of the markets, especially since the prices are very high for citizens, and very low for farmers, as they do not cover production costs, as the costs of raising one chicken reached more than two and a half dinars, and it is distributed in small weights that are not desirable in the markets.
The farmers confirmed that the weather depressions that the region is exposed to during this period, and unusually, cause the spread of a virus among poultry, which leads to their death very quickly, and dozens of farms were exposed to this virus four months ago, which shocked the farmers.
They emphasized that deaths continue despite farmers taking the most severe measures of increasing heating and sterilization and increasing chick production in order to save their season from more losses, but to no avail, especially since the weather fluctuations are large and the temperature differences are higher than the permissible limits.
Farmer Aqil believes that the losses of poultry farmers in Jerash are estimated at hundreds of thousands, and they have been forced to leave their farms and abandon them in order to avoid further losses and the accumulation of debts that will burden them.
The owners of "broiler chicken" farms were counting on the summer in order to make up for what they missed during the period they stopped working with the onset of winter, in order to avoid any losses as a result of the high costs of raising broiler chickens during the winter, but the weather fluctuations and the accompanying mutated viruses prevented them from that.
In turn, the trader Abdel Basset Al-Masry said that the amount of poultry supplied so far to the markets is very modest, and is done in simple batches that barely cover the need of 5% of consumption, and poultry shops work an hour or two per day due to lack of poultry, while high prices prevent citizen consumption.
