Gulf countries ban egg exports from India

December 21, 2008 12:56:00
NAMAKKAL : The bird flu scare in north east India has once again hit egg exports in south India’s poultry hub of Namakkal, as Gulf countries have re-imposed a ban on poultry products from India.
Barely a fortnight after lifting the ban on egg shipments from Namakkal, Oman has once again imposed curbs following the fresh outbreak of avian flu in Assam. Shipments of 15 lakh eggs to Oman daily from Namakkal have come to halt.
Every time bird flu hits north east India, it has an echo on the egg baskets of south India, as Gulf countries, which used to import over five million eggs daily from Namakkal, would clamp down on poultry consignments from India. In January this year, a bird flu outbreak in West Bengal brought egg imports to Gulf countries to a standstill.
After 10 months, the WHO had declared India free from bird-flu. And the Gulf countries began to ease curbs. However, once again, bird flu is sweeping poultry farms in Assam and distant Namakkal is feeling the adverse impact, says the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) official, Balasubramaniam. However, west African countries, Afghanistan and a few former Soviet countries continued to pick up eggs from Namakkal. But Christmas has handed a Santa Claus bonanza to Tamil Nadu’s egg land as the demand from domestic buyers is on the upswing once again.
Last week, egg stocks had piled up at the 800 poultry farms and the prices too fell steeply by 15 paise in Namakkal However, Christmas and New Year are round the corner, and it is time to make egg pastries and cakes. So, the egg stocks are fast clearing and the price of eggs fixed by the NECC in Namakkal has gone up to 1.95 paise up by five paise.
About 1.5 crore of eggs from Namakkal are now headed for Kerala and the rest of Tamil Nadu