LAHORE: The Pakistan Poultry Association fears egg consumption to drop drastically in the country due to ‘unfavourable’ conditions.

“The per capita egg consumption last year was 100 eggs per annum. But this may come down drastically this year, which is an alarming situation for us,” PPA North region chairman Dr Abdul Karim told a press conference to mark the World Egg Day here on Friday.

The average egg consumption in the developed world stands at 300 eggs per annum. Pakistan produces around 11,250m table eggs each year.

The local demand for eggs would drop because of the poultry product’s high cost mainly owing to increasing dollar-rupee disparity making import of poultry feed raw material expensive, Mr Karim explained, adding that 70pc of the poultry feed ingredients were imported from abroad.

He said the poultry meat and egg rates could be lowered only by reducing their input cost and claimed that prices of poultry had gone up since the imposition of sales tax and import tax on feed in 2013.

Giving a comparison of hikes in the prices of mutton, beef and chicken meat since 1993, he said the three types of meat registered 1750pc, 1600pc and 450pc increase respectively, while the rate of wheat went up 750pc during the period.

Mr Karim didn’t see any impact of opening of the Afghan market on poultry prices in the local market, claiming Pakistan had the capacity to cater to the needs of the neighbouring country. He parried a question about the demand figures of various major urban centres, including Lahore, and said demand for poultry would swing with season and various occasions.

Replying to a query, he said prices could be stabilised through enhancing supplies than demand and creating a competition among the producers and not through the use of force.

Earlier, Mr Karim said the PPA had been celebrating egg day, which falls on the second Friday of October, since 1996.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2021