The Indian poultry industry is unfazed over the World Trade Organisation’s ruling against the Government’s ban against import of the US chicken. The industry, which sells about 20 crore live birds a month or 40 crore kilograms of meat a month, says Indian love fresh chicken.
“US poultry players are not going to export live birds. What they are going to export to India is frozen chicken legs. This segment of business is not even 0.5 per cent,” GB Sundararajan, Managing Director of Suguna group, told BusinessLine , reacting to the development.
After uproar from the poultry industry, the Government had banned imports from the US. Acting on a US plea against the ban, WTO’s appellate body said the ban was not consistent with international trading norms. “There certainly is a market for such products (chicken legs). But it is not big enough to threaten the poultry industry’s existence in the country,” he said.
Poultry players in Telangana, a dominant player in the domestic poultry industry, too say they don’t lose sleep over the issue. “We (Indian players) are not weak. They are going to dump chicken legs as they did elsewhere. But we can withstand. Our consumers love fresh chicken and only a small percentage of them savour the frozen meat,” he said.
Venkateshwara Hatcheries General Manager KG Anand says that the government can still appeal against the ruling in the next 12 months. “We are okay if they export birds. But they don’t do that. They are going to export only legs, for which there are no takers in the US,” he said.