Dwindling egg price is taking a toll on the income of poultry farmers across the country. In Sarpang, the poultry farmers are unable to market eggs as the district’s Layer Cooperative temporarily suspended collecting eggs due to reduced prices in the market. Until recently, the cooperative used to collect eggs from the members and market the produce to other districts.
The members of the Sarpang Layer Cooperative are facing difficulty to sell the eggs even after reducing the price by almost half per cartoon.
They used to fetch more than Nu 2,000 per cartoon until recently.
“Currently, we are marketing ourselves by taking to Thimphu. Some who have vehicles even take it to Paro, Trongsa and Bumthang. We have to sell at a low rate of Nu 1,300 to 1,400,” said Pema Tshering, a poultry farmer from Dekiling Gewog.
“The cooperative used to take our eggs regularly in the past when the situation was favourable. But now they have completely stopped collecting our eggs. There is no benefit of being a member of the cooperative,” said Indra Badhur Basnet, another poultry farmer from Dekiling.
“Now, we are selling it to other buyers since the cooperative stopped collecting the eggs. But still, we are running in loss as the feed price has increased while the price of the egg has decreased to Nu 1,200 per cartoon,” said Narapati Basnet, another poultry farmer.
The Chairman of Sarpang Layer Cooperative said they have stopped collecting eggs from their members as the market price is lesser than the price at the farm. He said the decrease in egg price is due to increasing production across the country at this time of the year.
“We collect the eggs from the farmers after fixing the prize at the farm. The egg prices keep on changing depending on the demand and supply,” said Thakur Prasad Homagai, Chairman of Sarpang Layer Cooperative.
Sarpang Layer Cooperative has 45 members. Each of them would usually supply up to 200 cartons of eggs every week to the cooperative to be distributed to other districts.
Karma Wangdi, Sarpang
Edited by Phub Gyem
