India has Tremendous Potential to Increase Poultry Export.

India has tremendous potential to increase its export of poultry meat provided it overcomes the constraint of limited processing plants, according to Poultry Federation of India (PFI).

"Potential to export poultry meat from India is tremendous. All the major poultry importing countries are around India. Being in the middle of market and competitive cost of broiler production are in favour of India," PFI treasurer Ricky Thaper told PTI.

However, enough poultry processing plants are not in place to capture a big share of the export potential, he lamented. India's export of poultry products came down to Rs 372 crore in 2009-10 from Rs 422 crore in 2008-9, Apeda (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) quoting DGCIS annual export said.

Major destinations of export of poultry products are Afghanistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Pakistan, Maldives, Liberia and Bahrain. Entrepreneurs should encash the opportunity to earn good profits by exporting broiler meat to Russia, Middle East countries and even Japan and other developed countries, Thaper said.

"When we process broiler meat into different cuts, the premium cuts having low cholesterol levels such as breast meat are in great demand in developed economies," he said, adding that India was in a position to compete with the developed countries as they had limited supplies of the breast meat and sold it at a very high premium.

In India, less than 10 % of the broilers are dressed and processed hygienically for sale in food malls and other high-end markets. Ninety per cent of consumers still go for live poultry.

The question of disposal of surplus body parts, which would not get premium price in export market, did not arise in India, as Indian consumers preferred meat from chicken legs, Thaper said. The entrepreneurs have the scope to export premium cuts such as breast meat to developed countries at a higher price, which is very competitive but still highly profitable, and sell the remaining broiler body parts in India, again at a competitive price and realise good value for dressed broilers.

This was possible only if the birds were dressed hygienically as per international standards, he said. India currently ranked fifth in the world as a broiler producer. The Indian poultry industry is worth Rs 20,000 crore.

Source : fnbnews.com