Title : Interventions of Market Strategies for Livestock Products Assuring Food Safety and Security in Bangladesh
Abstract:
Poultry has been considered an effective tool for poverty reduction, nutritional enhancement, entrepreneurship development, gender equity and equality, cash income and GDP’s contribution. The growth of country’s poultry industry is about 15 - 20% for the last decade covering a rapid expansion of infrastructural development which led to the production of 23.37 billion eggs and 1.46 million tons of poultry meat annually, engaging around one million entrepreneurs and employing 8 million people. The industry comprises of sixteen grandparent farms, two hundred six breeder farms and hatcheries producing about 17-million-day old chicks, about seventy thousand layer and broiler farms, one hundred ninety-eight feed mills producing 5.4 million metric ton feed daily. This paper will highlight the existing scenario, prospects, production system, problems and potential interventions of livestock and poultry product marketing system for sustainable production and marketing system.
Traditionally major portion of livestock and poultry products are sold alive because of lacking trust on slaughtering method, fear of diseases or dead birds slaughter, lack of processing and preservation technologies and increase of consumer’s awareness on food safety. Producers need to reduce their production cost minimizing the input price, maximize their productivity with adoption of new technologies and good management practices in production system. The demand for formally processed poultry products is on the rise, driven by changing consumer preferences, urbanization and increasing disposable incomes. Urban consumers are increasingly seeking convenience, quality and safety in their food products, which has led to a growing market for processed and packaged poultry. This shift in demand presents significant opportunities for formal poultry processing industry to expand and innovate. Fair and stable price of products should be ensured through elimination of middlemen in the marketing channel, developing and restructuring Government regulatory framework, developing/strengthening of producer’s association, capital support for the entrepreneurs and coordination among the producers, input suppliers, capital support for the entrepreneurs, government bodies and other stakeholders.
Addressing market intelligence gaps along with facilitating capital facilities from banks with low interest rate can better align production with consumer’s demand, while reducing import dependency through local research and development will enhance the sector’s resilience and sustainability.
