Waiba Poultry and Agricultural Farm of Mechinagar, Jhapa was doing well. The farm owned 5,000 layer chickens and produced 2,520 eggs daily. It looked like the perfect poultry farm success story.

But proprietor Buddhi Man Tamang had a big complaint against the government; and on February 7, he showed just how upset he was by smashing 4,200 eggs on the road at Mukti Chowk, Birtamode as a protest.

“We want the government to guarantee a market for our products,” said Tamang.

Tamang is not the only egg farmer with a grievance against the government. Many farmers, mostly those who have graduated to entrepreneurs, say they don’t get a fair price for their products. Many say they have a hard time breaking even.

This kind of problem, not getting a fair price for their products, is widespread in the farm sector. Vegetable growers, fish rearers, fruit producers and poultry farmers all say they are getting paid a pittance for their hard work.

Poultry farmers fume that customers pay Rs15 per egg at a retail store, but the price they are paid is barely half that.

The reason is that there is a great distance between the egg producer and the egg consumer, insiders say metaphorically. The product passes through multiple layers of middlemen who each add their mark-up; and by the time it reaches the consumer, the price has bloated.

Illegal imports of poultry products from India has also hit the domestic poultry industry, farmers say.

Poultry is one of the few successes in Nepal as the country has attained self-sufficiency in chicken meat and eggs.

“But middlemen entered the sector and spoiled everything. They are selling eggs with a profit margin of nearly 100 percent,” said Chudamani Magar, another farmer from Mechinagar Municipality-2.

According to Tamang, it costs Rs2,600 to Rs2,700 to produce a carton of eggs. A carton contains 210 eggs. “We are forced to sell them at Rs1,800 to Rs1,900 per carton.”

Bibek Niraula, managing director of Mechi Poultry, says around 1.5 million eggs are consumed daily in Jhapa district.

“The current production meets less than one-third of the district's requirement, but still locals face hassles selling their products,” said Niraula. “Traders have been bringing eggs illegally from India because of the open border.”

Many farmers tell a similar story. Farmers in Jhapa are saying that the government should prohibit middlemen in the poultry industry and set the minimum support price for poultry products.

Ditto to that, say farmers in Chitwan.

While bird flu remains a threat to the poultry industry, there are various challenges that have been creating difficulties in the business, farmers say.

While farmers get a meagre return for their product since middlemen gobble up most of the money, consumers have to pay through their nose.

“Farmers sell their eggs for Rs250 per crate, that is 30 eggs,” said Madan Pokharel, secretary of the Nepal Layers Poultry Association in Chitwan, the union of egg-producing farmers. “This means farmers get around Rs8 per egg.”

The retail price is Rs14.

Deepak Pandey, a poultry farmer in Chitwan, says that it costs Rs210 to raise a broiler chicken until it reaches a body weight of 1 kg.

"While the retail price of chicken in the district is as much as Rs360 per kg, farmers get only Rs180 to Rs190 per kg," said Pandey.

The Nepal Poultry Traders Forum says the price of chicken feed has doubled in the past five years from Rs30 per kg.

According to Tej Narayan Pandey, former president of the Nepal Poultry Suppliers Welfare Association, it is difficult to get the products from farmers to consumers without the involvement of suppliers. But the problem is there are too many middlemen.

“The price doesn’t change solely due to the suppliers, there exist several factors in the market,” said Pandey.

The same suppliers who sell the chicks and feed to farmers buy the chickens and eggs back from them. Therefore, suppliers enjoy a monopoly in setting the price instead of farmers.

Traders say they have been asking the government to set up several large-scale cold storage facilities by involving farmers too, but the government has been turning a deaf ear to their concerns.

“There are hurdles everywhere in the poultry business,” said Guna Chandra Bista, president of the Nepal Poultry Federation. “The liquidity crisis and rising interest rates have made the situation worse.”

There are 348 hatcheries producing broiler chicks and 14 hatcheries producing layer chicks in Nepal. However, only a couple of layer hatcheries and around 200 broiler hatcheries are currently in operation.

“Before the Covid-19 pandemic, hatcheries used to add around 200,000 chicks every month,” said Pokharel. “But after the pandemic, the figure barely reaches 60,000 chicks per month.”

Hatcheries need to add new chicks regularly as the laying hens grow older.

According to Bista, there is an investment of around Rs150 billion in the Nepali poultry industry, around half of which is bank loans.

In March 2021, Nepal was declared self-reliant in the production of eggs and meat.

“If the current trend continues, the country can become a net importer of poultry products,” said Bista.