Meat traders deal with stale stock as buyers chicken out

NEWDELHI: For the last week or so, Arman Ansari of south Delhi’s Khirki village has been operating secretively, to sell his remaining stock of meat. “There has been no fresh supply for around a week, the police do not let me open my shop. What do I do with the stock of boneless chicken, kebabs and processed meat?” said Ansari.

Soon after the 21-day lockdown was imposed from March 25, the Union home ministry released guidelines stating that enterprises selling essentials, such as meat, would be allowed to operate. The guidelines were to ensure a supply of meat to kitchens and dining tables, but poultry associations and livestock cooperatives confirmed that most shops in Delhi-ncr have run out of chicken and other meat.

Delhi-based dealers said the gap between demand and supply can be attributed to complex issues that engulf the industry in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, the major sources, at a point when the coronavirus scare was spreading but a lockdown was yet to be imposed.

Delhi has a daily need of around four lakh chicken, 10,000 goats, 1,000 buffaloes and 500 pigs, as per the data shared by Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Foundation, a Delhi-based livestock research group.

The bulk of the stock comes from Haryana, parts of Rajasthan, UP, Punjab and Himachal.

News of the first case of Covid-19 in India, reported on January 31, hit the poultry industry as people drew comparisons with bird flu that several countries were hit with in the past, said Brajesh Kumar, a poultry farmer from Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh.

He said chicken have a production cycle of 40 days — the period between hatching and gaining optimum mass, in terms of meat yield. However, when sales dropped, the production cycle stretched, which means stocks comprised mostly chicken that were older than 40 days.

“Wholesalers started to offer lesser prices but the benefits of this did not reach consumers as middlemen in the supply chain did not let it happen. In February came a rumour that chicken cause coronavirus. This hit the industry hard,” said Kumar.

In March, it was reported that poultry owners across north India were burying chicken alive, unable to bear the cost of production (estimated at around ₹80 per bird for a 40-day span) when sales were almost zero.

“There was a vacuum in the market, that was filled by an increase in demand for mutton,” said Vijay Sardana, convener of the Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Foundation.

By the time the lockdown was imposed, there was a shortage of chicken and supply of mutton was thinning, said Akbar Qureshi, a livestock dealer based in Haryana’s Mewat, who supplies largely to markets in Delhi-ncr.

On March 24, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) issued an order to shut the Ghazipur slaughterhouse — the national Capital’s only legal facility to butcher sheep, goats and buffaloes.

“The health of at least 500 butchers and supervisors, who work at the Ghazipur facility, would have been at risk,” Arun Kumar, spokesperson, EDMC, said.