From CII roundtable: Ensuring feed security and sustainable growth of India’s poultry sector

Uday Singh Bayas, President of Poultry India, Dr Ravinder Jaiswal, President of ABIS Foods and Proteins Private Limited and Dr Harshakumar Shetty, General Manager-Sales & Technical Support of Venkateshwara Hatcheries Pvt Ltd, shared their views on:

• Strengthening feed security and availability
• Sustainable sourcing of feed ingredients
• Innovative feed resources
• Advances in poultry nutrition and feed efficiency
• Precision nutrition, feed additives and digital technologies
• Policy support for enhancing the competitiveness of India’s poultry industry.

It was stressed that food, feed and fuel should grow together and not compete with each other.

Mr Chitturi in his closing remarks of first session said feed security must be treated as national food security. Affordable eggs and chicken are among the cheapest and most accessible source of high quality of protein for Indian households and ensuring a stable feed supply is essential to sustainable India’s nutritional security.

The Special address was given by Dr Naveena B Maheswarappa, Animal Husbandry Commissioner at the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, India’s Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying. Dr Maheshwarappa gave the good news to the poultry industry that soon the government of India might allow import of HPAI vaccine for which entire industry has been following-up with the Animal Husbandry Department from last few years.

The key highlight of the event was the release of the CII Study Paper: ‘Poultry sector in India: Contribution to Viksit Bharat Vision’, reflecting the sector’s growing importance in India’s economic development, nutrition security and rural livelihoods.

This was followed by technical session which was well moderated by Dr Ramesh Kumar Dhanakoti, Member of CII National Committee on Animal Agriculture and Managing Director of Salem Microbes Pvt Ltd.

Dr Ani Bency Jacob, Assistant Commissioner (LH) at the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, addressed the gathering followed by discussions with esteemed panelists: KS Ashok Kumar, Managing Director of Maa Integrators; Abhishek Negi, Co-Founder of Eggoz Nutrition; Dr Shirish Nigam, Managing Director-South Asia of EW Nutrition; and Moiz Mansur Chunawala, Managing Director of India Poultry Alliance (Allana Group).

This was followed by the open house discussions session.

Ricky Thaper

Reduction of GST on feed additives and poultry equipment was discussed. Ricky Thaper, on behalf of the poultry industry, highlighted the current issue of shortage of soybean meal. The poultry industry is growing at 7-8% per annum however the agriculture growth is less than 2% so there will be issue of supply of feed ingredients such as soybean meal and corn.

Later Dr Dhanakoti gave the concluding remarks. The program was followed by networking lunch with engaging discussions and valuable insights.

Thanks to AV Rajamany, Director of CII Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence (FACE) for arranging this roundtable meeting and meaningful networking with industry colleagues as we all collectively work towards building a resilient, sustainable and globally competitive poultry sector for India.