Egg prices unlikely to cool off soon

The price of chicken eggs has risen substantially over the past week, piling even more pressure on general consumers who are already facing tough times due to the growing cost of living in Bangladesh.

Retailers in Dhaka were selling the once low-cost source of protein for as much as Tk 165 per dozen yesterday while it was Tk 125 for the same amount the week before.

Producers claim they had to increase the price for having to spend more on chicken feed ingredients, namely soybean meal and corn, coupled with higher transport costs.

However, they believe the price will eventually come down over the next three months.

For example, Kayser Ahmed, managing director of Diamond Egg Limited, said the price of layer chickens has increased due to a gap in production and as a result, so has the cost of eggs .

"But the price will come down in 15 days because egg producers will have new sets of layer chickens by then," he added.

He hopes that after the new layer chickens arrive, egg production will increase by about 40 per cent within the next three months.

"Then the price of eggs will come down."

Currently, it costs about Tk 10 per chicken to produce eggs, including the cost of feed, vitamins, vaccines and electricity.

Ahmed went on to say that feed costs have almost doubled in the past year, leading to a 60 per cent decline in the production of layer chicken at the same time.

"This created a gap in the market and egg production subsequently declined by 30 per cent, which is the main reason behind the price going up," he said.

According to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, on Sunday the price of farm-grown eggs were 28.05 per cent higher compared to a month ago and 54.41 per cent higher year-on-year.

About 3.5 crore to 4 crore eggs are required daily to meet demand in the country, producers say.

Meanwhile, transport costs have risen twice in the last nine months -- first on November 5 and the second on August 6 -- after the government hiked local fuel prices past the international average.

Abu Lutfe Fazle Rahim Khan, managing director of Aftab Bahumukhi Farms Limited, said if production costs are reduced, the price of eggs will decrease in the coming days.

Khan suggested that the government could take some initiatives to reduce the cost of production. For example, dropping the price of diesel would be a huge help to this end.

He then said some people are complaining that the price has risen due to syndicates.

"But eggs are highly perishable goods and for this reason, syndication is not possible."

The morale of chicken egg producers has been going down over the past two years due to various reasons.

Many are in debt because of the Covid-19 fallout while Bird Flu recently started occurring in some areas of the country, including Bhairab.

"That's why egg production has fallen," Khan added.

A study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations says an average person needs to eat 104 eggs per year.

As per data from the Department of Livestock Services, 2335.35 crore eggs were produced throughout Bangladesh in fiscal 2021-22. As such, egg production has more than tripled in the past ten years, it showed.

Md Tahir Ahmed Siddiqi, president of the Bangladesh Egg Producers Association, said the recent load shedding is another cause for the decline in production while the diesel price hike inflated carrying costs by Tk 2 per piece.

Mahabubur Rahaman, general secretary of the Breeders Association of Bangladesh, said that since eggs are a cheap source of protein, the increased cost will have a big impact on the protein intake of low-income earners if the problem persists.

Growers and traders said that people have never been forced to buy eggs at such a price before, including the time when they increased abnormally in 2009 and 2010 due to Bird Flu.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the price of four chicken eggs was around Tk 27 in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscal years.