Rabat – The National Association of Poultry Meat Producers is blaming feed importers for current price hikes, as poultry prices have significantly risen in recent weeks.
After the prices have been stable during Eid al-Adha and summer, they are once again on the rise, moving from MAD 15 ($1.5) to MAD 20 ($2) per kilogram.
In an interview with the media outlet Le360, President of the National Association of Poultry Meat Producers, Mustapha Mountassir, accused poultry feed importers of refusing to pass on the drop in international feed prices in Morocco.
Mountassir explained that the prices currently adopted are the actual prices, and that the drop in prices earlier this summer was the result of a lack of demand after Eid al-Adha.
High temperatures and the wedding season has also contributed to the rise in prices.
The president is calling on poultry feed importers to reduce their prices in response to the global downturn, in order to stabilize poultry prices once again.
He added that middlemen are also playing a major role in the rise in poultry prices, as they are taking advantage of the situation to increase their profits at the expense of poultry farmers and the general public.
According to him, when the producer incurs a loss, this means that productivity will soon decline much further. It is not sensible that the producer who risks his capital for production suffers a loss, while the one [seller] who receives the product and sells it over a day harvests the entirety of the share, he stressed.
Concluding his statement on the issue, Mountassir said that this needs “monitoring.”
As Eid Al-Fitr was drawing near this year, certain Moroccan markets witnessed dramatic chicken costs which climbed and reached MAD 28 (almost $3) per kilogram.
Professionals had claimed that the surge in price might have been attributed to the skyrocketing expenses of food items, as costs to maintain and manufacture chicken flesh continue to climb.
Read also: Morocco’s #Let_it_cluck Hashtag Calls for Boycott of Chicken
