Sylhet Poultry farm owners facing hard time

Sylhet Correspondent :
The owners of at least 500 poultry farms in Sylhet are facing hard times. Price of poultry feed and medicines have gone out of reach of the poultry traders and poultry diseases are spreading much than that of any other time. On the other hand, smuggled chicks from border areas have been affecting their business a lot. Many poultry farms in remote areas of the district have already closed due to the outbreak of infectious diseases and failing to cope with the high prices of poultry feed.
Sources in Sylhet Livestock Department said, there are about 450 to 500 poultry farms in 12 upazila of Sylhet. According to the owners of the farms, the price of poultry feed has been showing an upward trend from the last few years but during the last couple of months it went up by at least 15-25 per cent and a large number of poultry died due to outbreak of various diseases recently.  Now they buy the average quality of poultry feed at Tk 47 to Tk 50 per kg while it was only Tk 32 to Tk 37 during the last year.
On the other hand, they have to face a great hardship due to lack of vaccine for the diseases.
Another poultry farm owner said that poultry business is controlled by a syndicate of some reputed companies.
The syndicate also controls the feed market. As a result, they are totally hostage in their hands. The government does not take any action against them. Though poultry trade is the backbone of the nation, there is none to look into it, he added. Poultry feed trader Jabed Ahmed said, he needs Tk 140 to Tk 142 for making one kilogram of poultry feed but he has to sell it at Tk 100 to Tk 110 per kilogram at present. In this way he has to incur a loss of Tk 40 to Tk 42 on each kilogram of feed. He further said that some owners of poultry farms who have taken loans for doing the business are fleeing to avoid humiliation, he added.
Poultry farm owner Jogodis Nath said, about 300 to 450 poultry farms in the district have been shut down and their families have been passing days in distress.

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