Nesma Nowar reports on rising poultry prices The rapid spread of foot and mouth disease (FMD) among cows and buffaloes over the past couple of weeks has pushed consumers away from buying meat. Instead, they have started to buy more chicken. This rise in demand has in turn caused a spike in poultry prices. The price of a kilo of chicken rose to LE18.5 this week, compared to LE17 last week. But some believe the poultry pricing issue is more complex. Poultry shop owner Mohsen Abadi told Al-Ahram Weekly prices have indeed increased in the last couple of weeks as a result of the FMD, but that "poultry prices were already high before FMD surfaced. The FMD and subsequent rise in demand on poultry caused a LE1 hike to the already soaring poultry prices." Abdel-Aziz El-Sayed, head of the poultry division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, agrees with the shop owner. He stated that while the spread of FMD may have resulted in a surge in demand on poultry, it is not the only reason behind price hikes. He attributed the price hike to a drop in Egypt's poultry production since the advent of winter last November. He said that this year's cold winter brought with it several epidemics, which resulted in the death of 40 to 60 per cent of chickens. "This has led to a drop in local poultry production, to reach 1.2 million chickens a day compared to 1.9 million last August," El-Sayed told the Weekly. Both El-Sayed and shop owner Abadi attributed the death of chickens to the shortage in fuel needed for the farms to run heating systems. The drop in poultry supply alongside an increase in production cost, according to El-Sayed, has inevitably pushed prices up. El-Sayed added that the current gap between local production and consumption amounts to 800,000 chickens daily. If local production does not rise, poultry prices will witness a price hike that might range from 25 to 40 per cent. Still, he is optimistic that poultry production will increase in the coming period. Multiple occasions in the coming months, including [the holy month of] Ramadan, he said, will help push production up. "They will urge producers to increase their production, in order to make up for their losses," he said. While Abadi expects poultry prices to decrease within two weeks should local production pick up, El-Sayed does not expect prices to decrease before the end of Ramadan in August. For their part, many consumers have complained from high poultry prices. "My salary does not cover such high prices," said Doaa Adel. "It is not only poultry; fish has also witnessed a similar price hike." Indeed, the spread of FMD has also pushed fish prices up, because it too is a source of protein. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri held a meeting to discuss the increase in poultry prices, especially after the spread of FMD. The meeting discussed measures the government would take to prevent further price hikes. Over the past two weeks, the FMD outbreak has hit 25 governorates in Egypt, causing many animal deaths, especially among young animals. Some even feared that Egypt's livestock could be eliminated completely.
