The poultry industry is badly hit with prices going down. The industry across the country is now facing a suicide spree. Due to a loss of over Rs 4,000 crores across the country, small farmers are scared due to low prices. The price of an egg has gone to 50 paisa and Rs 5 for one kg of chicken from Rs 1.80 and Rs 65 respectively.
Due to this small farmers are being forced to commit suicide. K Narayana Reddy, president, of Andhra Pradesh Poultry Federation, said that three farmers one from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal had committed suicide in the recent weeks.Totally over 10 farmers in the country have committed suicide since the bird flu scare broke out in India. He said that the main cause for them committing suicide is that the centre is having a very insensitive attitude. The farmers cannot manage the mounting losses and inability to feed the birds due to very low egg prices over 35 days.
KVS Subba Raju, zonal chairman, National Egg Coordination Committee, said that sop far there is no single casualities due to bird flu. He also added that there was no single case of human blood sample testing positive for bird flu anywhere in the country.
He pointed out to the fact that the Central government officials are unnecessarily terrorizing the public with their statements on spread of bird flu to human beings. But the worst affected are the poultry farmers who have incurred a total loss of about Rs 200 crores per day. This has led to desperation and the farmers resort to suicide as the last step.
