Surplus Chicken Output Expected Next Month

EghtesadOnline: Iran’s chicken output is expected to reach 280,000 tons in the next Iranian month (Feb. 20-March 19), the head of Iran Broiler Breeders Union’s board of directors said.

News ID: ۷۸۵۴۰۳

19 February 2020

Boroumand Chahar-Aeen added that monthly domestic chicken demand stands at 21,000 tons, Financial Tribune reported.

In other words, there will be a surplus of 70,000 tons next month.

He said earlier that the production surplus and price decline inflicted losses worth 11 trillion rials ($79.13 million) on Iranian chicken farms over the past four months.

The official expects the losses to reach 12 trillion rials ($86.33 million) by the end of the current Iranian year (March 19), the Young Journalists Club reported.

The oversupply is partly to blame on high tariffs on chicken exports.

Former minister of agriculture, Mahmoud Hojjati, voiced concern last year over the 40% tariff on chicken export, adding that the duty is creating a domestic oversupply with negative consequences for farmers.

Hojjati wrote a letter to Minister of  Industries, Mining and Trade Reza Rahmani recently, urging him to lift the tariff on chicken exports that he said had been imposed since late August without coordination with related authorities, Fars News Agency reported.

He noted that the tariff should have obtained the approval of a working group regulating agrifood exports from Iran.

Hojjati insisted that the Agriculture Ministry had been ignored in the process of levying the duty.

The 40% tariff on chicken exports was enacted mid-summer after authorities expressed concerns about the surging prices of white meat and its impact on the country’s food security.

The Industries Ministry had earlier ordered Iran’s customs office to charge 50,000 rials ($0.35) for each kilogram of exported chicken.

The average Producer Price Index for industrial chicken farms in the four-quarter period to the end of the third quarter of the current Iranian year (Dec. 21) increased by 42.23% compared with last year's corresponding period.

The overall PPI for the sector in autumn (Sept. 23-Dec. 21, 2019), using 2011 as the base year, stood at 537.09.

The index indicates a 10.44% increase compared with the preceding quarter and a 14.14% rise compared with last year's same quarter.

The highest quarter-on-quarter increase of the index among Iranian provinces during the period under review was registered for Gilan with 40.22% and the sharpest decline was recorded in Lorestan with 10.62%.

On a year-on-year basis, Sistan-Baluchestan registered the highest increase with 67.57% and Qom posted the biggest decrease with 5.08%, the Statistical Center of Iran reported.