Boiled, scrambled, omelette, poached or in a roll — eggs are fast finding themselves in Indian plates. However, despite the demand for this high-protein yielding food going up sharply over the years, the availability of eggs in India is 63 eggs per person per year even compared 180 eggs per person as recommended by the National Institute of Nutrition.
India is ranked sixth among the top egg producing countries. Rapid urbanisation, increasing population and its nutritional needs, economic factors affecting food demand has led to this shortage in the demand-supply chain.
Acknowledging that per capita availability of eggs in India is lower than the global average, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Friday called for raising the domestic output three times from the current level of 83 billion eggs to achieve nutritional security. “In egg production, we are at sixth position in the world. The country currently produces 83 billion eggs,” Singh said, while addressing a conference on the occasion of World Egg Day. India’s egg production in 2014-15 was 78.48 billion.
He said the Central Government is promoting poultry farming through National livestock Mission where this is being encouraged under the component of entrepreneurship development and employment generation. The Minister added government is giving financial assistance to families below poverty line (BPl) to encourage poultry farming.
Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, Goa, West Bengal are major egg producing States but Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh too are catching up fast due to higher demand.
Singh said that the government and the industry have an important role to play in increasing production. “Production will rise if those involved in poultry rearing get right price,” he said, adding that poultry farmers need to be encouraged via better pricing and policy initiatives.
Meanwhile, Indian Council of Agriculture Research and Indian Agriculture Research Institute at Pusa in Delhi have developed a new improved variety of arhar dal which takes 120 days to get ready for harvesting compared to its other varieties which takes about 165-180 days. Its production is 20 quintals per hectare and has 23.5% protein content in it.