The poultry industry having massive potentials for growth is facing growing challenges from increasing production cost and one of the reasons for setback is steady rise in the cost of raw materials and poultry feed in particular.
Speakers at a workshop titled 'PoultryTechBangladesh hosts Feed Milling Workshop' at a hotel in Dhaka on Wednesday highlighted the reasons and the challenges.
Under the public-private partnership, PoultryTechBangladesh, Netherlands-based consultant firm Larive International, along with their co-implementor, LightCastle Partners jointly organized the event, a press release said.
Van Aarsen, a consortium members of PoultryTechBangladesh project and developer, manufacturer and supplier of state of the art machines and complete feed mill and premix plant solutions, conducted the session.
For Van Aarsen International B.V. Roger Ubags, area sales manager for South East Asia, presented a keynote paper titled 'Energy Capacity at Feed Mill' in the discussion.
Speakers said over the past few years, in addition to increase in price of corn and soy, two major ingredients of poultry feed, increase in fuel prices has also catered to increase of poultry feed production cost.
The Netherlands, one of the prominent countries with advanced agricultural practices, has developed energy-efficient feed mills as per scientific systems by using less costly and energy-saving methods to reduce the overall production cost.
Van Aarsen has been working since 1949 for making a modern animal feed processing and manufacturing feed mill for providing quality and safe foods for poultry birds. There are 40 such feed mills in the world at the moment. He said it would be possible to ensure supply of poultry feeds at less cost if such a method is used on a large scale in Bangladesh.
Dr. Rashed Mahmud, Research Manager of Healthy Poultry Hub-Bangladesh, presented another paper. Citing a survey report and said it would play a significant role in reducing diseases among people and animals if production and marketing is done in safe and more sustainable manners.
The discussants mentioned several challenges in poultry industry including rise in price of poultry feeds, instability in prices of chicken and eggs, trouble in getting bank loans for marginal farmers, absence of incentive during crisis, and imposing more customs duty on import of raw materials.
They said the sector has provided employment to large number of people, including women and called upon the government to take steps including giving special incentives to save the sector.
Haruni Osman, Senior Policy Advisor, Food & Nutrition Security at Embassy of the Netherlands, Sara van Hoeve, First Secretary at the embassy, Matthias Brienen, Director of Larive International, Zahedul Amin, Director of LightCastle Partners attended the session.
Moreover, over 40 officials and representatives of different organizations such as Kazi Group, Meghna Group, Aftab Group, Paragon and Provita were among the participants.
Amber van Spronsen, Emerging Market Advisor at Larive International and Dipa Sultana, Senior Business Consultant and Project Manager of LightCastle Partners, moderated the event.
Bangladesh's poultry farmers and owners received training through joint efforts of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, Netherlands Embassy and leading Dutch and Bangladesh organizations for boosting food production, including poultry.
