Bhubaneswar: The state has set its eyes on becoming self-sufficient in poultry and egg production, said state Finance and Excise Minister Sashi Bhusan Behera while felicitating several entrepreneurs for their contribution towards the sector in an event organised by Smart Agri Post, here Tuesday.
The conference ‘Poultry (Look East) 2018’ was organised jointly by private stakeholders in association with Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries (DADF) under Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Fisheries & Animal Resources Development Department of the state.
Throughout the day, several intellectuals brainstormed on issues and challenges facing the poultry industry, emerging poultry feed and health management, scope of export and processing poultry products.
The first session on issues and challenges of poultry industry was chaired by Professor A G Rao while the second one titled ‘Scope of Export & Processing Poultry Products’ was chaired by Sagar Mehra, JS, DADF, Government of India and the final session was a group interaction on issues and challenges faced by entrepreneurs.
Speaking on this occasion Pravash Pradhan of Smart Agri Post said, “The objective behind organising such type of workshop was to identify the issues and challenges and develop strategies for sustainable poultry production.” He underlined that the aim is to address the gap for input channelisation and cost effective small scale poultry production, to study the key issues in rural poultry production and effective challenges of self-management and to identify opportunities of poultry and egg processing and export.
It may be noted here that, poultry is one of the fastest growing segments in the agricultural sector in India. The production of agricultural crops has seen a growth rate of 1.5 to 2 per cent per annum, while the production of eggs and broilers has been rising at a rate of 8 to 10 per cent per annum. As a result, India is now the world’s third largest egg producer and the fourth largest producer of broilers. India is one of the few countries in the world that has put into place a sustained specific pathogen free (SPF) egg production project. The egg production in the country has increased from around 83 billion in 2015-16 to around 88 billion in 2016-17 registering a growth of about six per cent. Though egg processing industry has increased exports from around Rs 250 crores to about Rs 500 crores in FY 2015-16, the export turnover has reduced to Rs 325 crores in FY 2017-18.
