Similarly, price of live chicken has gone down by Rs 10 per kg to Rs 165 per kg. [break]
A joint meeting of Kathmandu-based poultry farmers, entrepreneurs and retailers took the decision. Janga Bahadur BC, president of National Chicken Sellers´ Association, said they decided to reduce the price of chicken due to less demand due to increase in temperature.
The demand for chicken generally goes down by 10 to 15 percent during summer. But the demand this year has gone down by nearly 30 percent due to scorching heat, BC said. “Besides, the demand also decreased due to anti-drink drive campaign launched by the traffic police,” he added.
According to poultry entrepreneurs, increase in supplies also affected the price. “Supply was interrupted in the last week of May due to banda and strikes. Now the supply is much more than the market demand,” added BC.
Along with drop in the price of chicken, price of chicks has also come down by Rs 17 per head. Major hatcheries in the valley such as Ashapuri, Valley, Lalitpur, Daunne, G J, Qwality, Champapur and Prabhat have fixed the price of chicks at Rs 30 per head.
“We were forced to reduce the price of chicks even though we are bearing loss as demand has dropped due to over production,” said Narayan Hari Khatri, president of Nepal Feed Industries Association and proprietor of Ashapuri Hatchery.
According to the association, around 1.8 million chicks are produced in the country on weekly basis. The demand for chicks currently hovers around 1.6 million heads per week.
Farmers have reduced the number of chicks in their farms due to drop in demand and other factors like high death rate of chicks, rice in temperature and uncertainty over feed availability due to frequent bandas and strikes.
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