Tonnes of Indian chicks arrive

By Shezna Shums

The first batch of Indian imported chickens arrived late last night to meet the increasing demand for poultry for Christmas and New Year celebrations.

On an order placed by the Ministry of Cooperatives and Internal Trade, 500 metric tonnes of chicken and 2 million eggs had been shipped by India.

Ministry, Media Secretary, Nipun Ekanayake told The Daily FT that the 500 metric tonnes of chicken will be stored in government cold rooms and only released if there is a shortage of poultry in the market.  “We will not be flooding the market, but only releasing chicken when there is a shortage in the market,” said Ekanayake.

The eggs meanwhile will arrive in Sri Lanka in another shipment once the chicken is unloaded at the harbor.

Both the shipments of chicken and eggs are being imported from India.

This move comes amid contradicting reports of poultry quantities in the country where the All Island Poultry Association confirms a surplus of chicken this month while the ministry is importing Indian chicken to put into the market.

Regarding eggs, however there is a current shortage in the market, but even in this case the importation of eggs is looked at with uncertainty as the All Island Poultry Association notes that eggs used for Christmas cakes and other items may be needed earlier than specifically during the Christmas weekend.

The government is looking at importing a total quantity of 5000 metric tonnes of chicken and 50 million eggs for the month of December.

The imported chicken will be sold at Lak Sathosa outlets at around Rs. 320 a kilo and an egg will be sold at about Rs. 12.50 to Rs. 13.25, whereas now an egg costs about Rs. 18 outside.

Meanwhile the Ministry is also looking at importing big onions from Pakistan to meet the shortage of onions in the local market.

Ministry of Co Operatives and Internal Trade Media Secretary, Nipun Ekanayaka, said that owing to the torrential rains and it being the off season, there is a shortage of onions in the country.

Even coconuts are being imported to the country to help curb the soaring prices of local coconuts.

Lanka imports big onion from Pakistan

Minister of Cooperatives and Internal Trade Johnston Fernando says that the government has decided to import big onion from Pakistan to eradicate the shortage and escalation of prices.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has granted approval to the decision to import big onion from Pakistan.

The Minister pointed out that around 35% to 40% of the local big onion harvest was destroyed by the recent floods.

The Ministry took measures to import big onion from India to control the price escalation. However, India also suspended export of big onion due to shortage for local consumption.

Meanwhile, the government says that chicken and eggs shipment imported from India will arrive in the country today and the will be ready for distribution by Friday.

The government has also ordered a stock of coconuts form Kerala and that shipment is expected to arrive in the country within the next few days.

The government has decided to import certain essential goods to arrest the escalating prices in the local market during the festive season.

Booming China to import key staples

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is set to continue to tap international markets for farm commodities in 2011, with the government driving demand this time to cover shortages and replenish reserves that got dangerously run down this year.

Commerce Minister Chen Deming told an internal ministry meeting the government will import to shore up reserves of sugar and meat, among other staples, according to a statement on the ministry website on Wednesday. “Given the growing pressure from price rises coupled with tight supplies of some farm products, securing supplies will play an important role in calming inflationary expectations and curbing speculative activities,” the statement said.

“We will increase the scale of reserves of daily necessities such as meat and sugar, add to reserves of other commodities as appropriate, and pick the right time to expand imports of goods that are in short supply domestically and replenish central reserves.” It gave no more details of the potential target commodities. But the impact on world prices could be significant, judging by the country’s deliberate stockpiling of base metals last year, its sudden call for corn imports this year, and its flip from a major seller to a major buyer of coal since the start of 2009. China has run down many of its agricultural stockpiles this year to stop strong demand driving up prices.

Many markets, especially corn, sugar, cotton and rubber, surged as speculators borrowed cheaply to invest in hard assets and bet on demand outpacing supply.

The government has cooled prices in the past two months by coming down hard on such investors, tightening monetary policy to siphon cash from the market and raising the bar for trades on China’s big three commodity exchanges.

But China has also helped to shore up prices by selling off stocks of many agricultural commodities including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, rapeseed oil, sugar, cotton and rubber.

Stocks of corn, sugar and cotton are thought to be below one month’s supply.

Normally officials would have already begun stockpiling the year’s corn harvest, but this year they have held off for fear of pushing up prices.

Cupboard is bare

With little scope for adding to its stock of land or water, China is looking for other ways to eke more out of what it has, including an increasing acceptance of biotechnology and a keenness to secure supplies of fertiliser.

Arable farming is due to get a $15 billion boost over the next five years as China upgrades farmland, in hope of adding 50 million tonnes of grain production capacity.

“For long, China was self-sufficient in many products, but maintaining this self-sufficiency has become much more difficult due to significant demand increases and arable land constraints,” analysts at Rabobank said in a report on Tuesday.

They pointed to this year’s imports of sugar, the highest for a decade, and of cotton, the second highest ever, and said “current estimates indicate China may import up to 8 million tonnes of corn in 2011”, which would be the highest ever.

Government stockpiles of all three commodities are now thought to be at very low levels after large sales this year.

Although China is enjoying a seventh consecutive bumper grains harvest, it faces a remorseless rise in demand because Chinese tastes are moving more towards meat, which means more demand for animal feed ingredients such as corn and soybeans.

But the government is unlikely to pour imported grains directly into its reserves because of its wariness about contaminating its own supplies with genetically modified strains that are not yet sanctioned for human consumption in China.

The Commerce Ministry statement said the ministry would also assist Chinese companies expand the sources of supplies of grains and cotton so that they can increase imports to ease domestic supply pressure whenever prices favour imports.

China’s top supplier of corn and cotton is the United States while Brazil is the largest exporter of sugar to China so far in 2010. China has also increased cotton and sugar imports from India.