Bangladesh’s poultry sector is gearing up to export eggs and poultry meat by 2024, especially to the Middle East, a big market for halal meat . But the recent global pandemic situation has put full stop to this promising sector . About tk 11.45 billion loss was estimated till April ,04 and day by day it has reached in humongous numbers . In the post covid era, things will not be the same . A huge paradigm shift may shake up all the middle small enterprenures.
- Producers
have no control over the product pricing .Producers are normally bound to
the Grand Parent stock farms , Parent stock farms , Feed comapnies . There
are no fixed policies for regulating and combining these .
- Whole
operation procedure is manual . This point is much more valuable in this
pandemic situation . Because lockdown hampers regular activities like the
hatchery operation , transportation and feed transportation .
- Most of the
middle and small farmers are low in investment and they can’t distribute
their product to the consumers . It results in an unjustified fluctuation
in the product pricing .
- This
situation leads to creating more and more intermediaries and syndicates to
control the prices of every component of this sector .The only victims are the consumers and producers here.
- No
limitations of using antibiotics
and harmful chemicals to ensure the increased output. Consumers can’t
track the whole flowcharts to see whether their products are safe or
not
Problems of Covid Affected
World
COVID-19 spreads primarily when people are in close
contact and one person inhales small droplets produced by an infected person
(symptomatic or not) coughing, sneezing, talking, or singing.
- Feed transportation
- DOC transportation
- Vaccine imports
- Feed imports
- Farm labour
unavailability
Additional to these problems , the most feared problem is
restaurants , chain sops , local markets, are closed down . This put a stop to the continuous flow starting from the GPS farm to
the hand of the consumer . As a result DOCs are piling up in the hatchery farms
causing a huge drop of the chick price . Egg supply dropped as well as the
price .
What Could Be The Next Possible
Solutions
Covid-19 pandemic brought a huge change in the
business arena . People are in lockdown
situations . A large portion of people are forced to do work from home .
Suddenly the virtual world seems the only way to run all the errands . Consumers
of all aspects prefer the virtual world for shopping .
So our poultry entrepreneurs can target that
market and focus their investment to develop or shift the business virtually .
This even true for big corporations like C.P. Bangladesh Co. Ltd (Food), Aftab Bahumukhi Farms
Ltd, Kazi Farms Group, Nourish Bangladesh etc .
Here is a model of layer marketing channel
for post covid world.
Here
are they -
●
In this model consumers can track
their products’ supply lines . It assures the product quality .
●
This model allows consumers of
every step to purchase their product online . It reduces the manpower for distribution and customer
services .
●
As the transportation system and
total lockdown is withdrawn to minimum level , farm operations can be done with
minimal manpower .
● A lot of people can be employed in the delivery system and transportation system.
Drawbacks and Solutions of this Model
This model has some drawbacks but with some
few easy tweaks it can be used as an efficient model .Few are pointed here -
- There is no
virtual market place for this kind of operation .Initially, the platforms
for online grocery shops can be used . But a foolproof market system need
to be established
- Rural
producers are not much familiar with technologies , they will face primary
shock . But if the government train the farmers to get familiar with
virtual marketplace everything will be much more easy .
- Even though we shift our marketplace totally to a different paradigm , we still are going to need labour force to operate the farms . By maintaining social distance , we can easily run our operations This model is reducing manpower in distribution and marketing, which is a great point in this pandemic situation .
This model can’t alone backup the Tk 35,000 crore industry.
Government should collaborate with the private sector, share knowledge, and
provide incentives. A proposal is given in the budget for
fiscal year 2020-2021 to lower the prices of poultry raw materials. If that
happens , this will be a great help for the medium and small farmers . Our
entrepreneurs should adapt in this new era of business . To fulfill the
national demand of poultry and poultry products it is needed to expand the
poultry business to all over the country. The government food and nutrition
security policy would have been in trouble if the poultry sector stopped it’s
journey . To mitigate food deficit, especially that of protein, the poultry
sector needs special attention.
Resources
1) https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/trade/poultry-negotiates-the-thorny-growth-path-1582518109
5) https://www.hlb.global/international-business-models-for-a-post-covid-19-world/
Writer
A good article !
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