Eat eggs, eggs and more eggs as prices fall to lowest in decades

By Elmo Leonard

A glut of eggs in Colombo has resulted in retail prices falling to Rs6 to Rs9 per egg. Lanka Egg Centre Pvt Ltd (LEC) fixed yesterday’s prices at Rs6.30 per white egg and Rs6.50 for a brown egg. But the buildup of stocks in Colombo’s main markets of Pettah, Mariyakada (Maradana), Dematagoda and Grandpass plummeted eggs to the lowest retail prices known in decades, of Rs6 to Rs8.50 each.
Eggs are the only food commodity to drop in price in recent years, while every other food item is skyrocketing with the falling rupee, and the country’s economy slipping into further debt. Egg prices in Colombo hovered for weeks at Rs7-9 per egg. Poultry farmers are agitated, with the cost of production of an egg rising to Rs8.50 to Rs9, and they were selling out their layers to the chicken market, Chairman All Ceylon Poultry Breeders’ Association (ACPBA) Dr. D. D. Wanasinghe said.
There are over 75,000 poultry farmers in the country, 40 percent of whom are in the egg industry.
The drop in price is also due to Buddhists, the largest segment of population, refraining from eating eggs and chicken  during the current Vesak/Poson season which will last until next month. President of LEC, D.J. Madawala however disagreed, saying that people were not refraining from eating eggs and chicken for religious reasons. Rather, he argued, the high cost of living resulted in poor sales of cake and other confectionary products (even watalappan) during the April New Year. Those stocks of eggs which did not go into the making of these products remained in the market, increasing the stockpile. The many holidays during the past two months had also led to stocks piling in the city, but the hens have no holidays and go on laying eggs, Madawala said.
Dr. Wanasinghe said that the government lacked a plan for the poultry industry. Madawela named big-time broiler farmers who had turned to eggs, when eggs sold during the Vesak Season last year at the high of Rs15 to Rs16.
In October 2010 eggs climbed to an all-time-high of Rs20, when the government blamed the poultry breeders and distribution trade of jacking up prices and imported eggs and poultry from India, only to destroy such poultry stocks en masse, after finding them past expiry.
Eggs are higher in price in Colombo’s suburbs at Rs10 to Rs12 because stocks first come into the city and are then moved out to retail outlets in the suburbs.{jcomments on}