Residents rethink daily menu as meat shortage hits hard

Delhi has a daily need of around 4 lakh birds (chicken), 10,000 goats, 1,000 buffaloes and 500 pigs, as per the data shared by Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Foundation, a Delhi-based livestock research group.

For the last week or so, Arman Ansari of south Delhi’s Khirki village has been operating secretively, to sell his remaining stock of meat. “Now that there has been no fresh supply for around a week, the police do not let me open my shop. What do I do with the stock of boneless chicken, raw kebabs and processed meat?” said Ansari.

A vegetable vendor wearing protective face masks waits for customers at a market during a lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus. (Bloomberg)

Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a 21-day nationwide lockdown on March 25 to contain the spread of Covid-19, the Union home ministry released guidelines stating that enterprises selling essentials, under which meat was listed, would be allowed to operate.

Essentially, the guidelines were to ensure a smooth supply of meat to kitchens and dining tables, but this has failed to happen, as poultry associations and livestock cooperatives confirmed that most shops in Delhi-NCR have run out of chicken and other meat.

Delhi-based dealers said on Monday that the massive gap between demand and supply can be attributed to complex issues that engulfed the industry in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, the major sources, at a point when the coronavirus scare was spreading but a lockdown was yet to be imposed.

Delhi has a daily need of around 4 lakh birds (chicken), 10,000 goats, 1,000 buffaloes and 500 pigs, as per the data shared by Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Foundation, a Delhi-based livestock research group.

The bulk of the chicken stock comes from Haryana’s districts of Ambala, Jind, Panipat and Sonepat, parts of Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh, while goats are sourced from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and parts of Uttar Pradesh, buffaloes from western Uttar Pradesh and pig from Punjab, as per the data.

CORONA SCARE

News of the first case of Covid-19 in India, reported on January 31, hit the poultry industry directly, as people drew comparisons with bird flu that several countries, including India, were hit with in the past, said Brajesh Kumar, a poultry farmer from Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh, who supplies to Delhi-NCR.

Elaborating, he said that chicken, on average, have a production cycle of 40 days — the time period between hatching and gaining optimum mass, in terms of meat yield. However, when sales dropped because of the unsubstantiated links between coronavirus and bird flu, the production cycle stretched, which means the stocks comprised largely of chicken that were older than 40 days.

“Wholesalers started to offer lesser prices but the benefits of the price drop did not reach the consumers as the middlemen in the supply chain did not let it happen. In February came a rumour that chicken cause coronavirus. This hit the industry hard,” said Kumar.

In March, it was reported that poultry owners across north India were burying chicken alive, unable to bear the cost of production (estimated at around ₹80 per bird for a 40-day span) when sales were almost zero.

“There was a vacuum in the market and it was filled by an increase in the demand for mutton,” said Vijay Sardana, convener of the Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Foundation.

He said, “There is a set clientele for buffalo meat and pork. That is by and large out of the demand and supply disruption in question here. As far as mutton is concerned, by mid-March, its price had almost doubled because of the massive demand that the cumulative supply could not meet.”

By the time the lockdown was imposed, there was already a shortage of chicken and supply of mutton was thinning rapidly, said Akbar Qureshi, a livestock dealer based in Haryana’s Mewat, who supplies largely to markets in Delhi-NCR.

On March 24, after Modi’s announcement, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) issued an order to shut the Ghazipur slaughterhouse — the national Capital’s only legal facility to butcher sheep, goats and buffaloes – in order to “restrict close proximity of human involvement in compliance with guidelines to control and contain Covid-19”.

“The health of at least 500 butchers and supervisors, who work at the Ghazipur facility, would have been at risk. The livestock market on the slaughterhouse premises has also been closed for now,” Arun Kumar, spokesperson, EDMC, said. However, he could not share the supply figures immediately before the lockdown.

Private chains, citing the Centre’s list exempting meat as an essential, protested the closure. Fauzan Alavi, a director of Frigorifico Allana, a food company, told HT over email: “As far as World Health Organization standards on hygiene and sanitation of the staff are concerned, we are taking care of it. Besides, this is a basic food product for a large section of the population. They will obviously not change their food habits overnight for 21 days.”

The Ghazipur slaughterhouse delivers over four lakh kilograms of meat daily, under an agreement with the east civic body. Although the slaughter of poultry is permitted at other locations in the city, there was hardly any distribution, according to many suppliers.

“The current shortage is a sad story of rumours and consumer ignorance. The government should boost the livestock and poultry industry. It employs more than 20 million people across the country and it is an industry worth around ₹1.25 lakh crore. It is also a major buyer of corn and oilseed by-products. If this industry sinks, it will take down other agricultural products too,” Sardana said.