Poultry Farming and the Indian Economy
Poultry farming has occupied an important place in the Indian economy. With the fast food culture an accepted feature, poultry farming is playing a greater role in the eatery business in India. It has emerged as the fastest growing segment in the agri livestock industry. Emergence of poultry as a large scale commercial enterprise took place less than 35 years ago. Poultry industry is producing a large quantity of eggs and nutritious meat for the second largest demography in the world of Indian subcontinent. It is making all efforts to develop the overseas market. The growing poultry industry in recent years has been adopted as a subsidiary or a main occupation which means promotion of economic up gradation. Poultry was a desi birds rearing industry in early fifties. Poultry farming was greatly helped in the economic and employment upliftment of our rural population. We may hope that by the end of century, poultry farming will be recognized as one of the most significant means of eradicating rural poverty and malnutrition. With greater awareness among consumers regarding meat quality, the demand of chicken meat will be much higher than the production. One advantage in rearing poultry is the fact that a small area of land suffices whereas much larger area would be needed for any other livestock enterprise. Marketing of poultry products usually poses no protein rich eggs and poultry meat is continuously on increase near urban areas. There are government and other financial and technical inputs to enthusiastic investors to undertake poultry farming as a vocation. Today, layer units of 100,000 birds and above under the cage system is common. India produces 40,000 million eggs and 1200 million broilers annually. More than 100,000 poultry farms of varying size ranging from few birds exist in rural and tribal areas of the country. There are about 123,000 poultry farmers in India. The value of output from the poultry sector is nearly Rs 330 billion. India has emerged as the