The tough Israeli blockade has started to affect chicken business in the blockaded Gaza Strip as a large number of people have decided to forego selling poultry meat.
Poultry sales have gone sharply down in Gaza for the second month running while experts have warned of an unabated crisis rocking the poultry market due to the unstable weather conditions that have recently swept the region.
Heavy losses have been inflicted on the poultry business with chicken meat being sold at no more than nine shekels a kilogram. Farmers reportedly spend up to eight shekels to raise just one chicken.
Speaking to a PIC news reporter Palestinian citizen Muhammad Abu Tabaq an owner of a poultry farm said: “I was hit hard by the volatile weather shifts. My family and I have had low spirits as a large number of hens—our sole source of income—have died.”
“I am afraid of losing my farm due to the frequent power cuts and the solar crisis” he stated.
He added that he has been forced to sell chicken at six shekels a kilogram (a dollar and a half) due to the decline in the purchasing power.
Poultry dealer Suhail Nahal attributed the sharp nosedive in poultry prices to the degeneration of Gazans’ purchasing power and the poor socio-economic conditions in the besieged coastal territory.
“Most of the poor families tend to buy frozen poultry at a lower price than fresh poultry” said Suhail.
Stricken by poverty and unemployment Palestinian families embarked on small poultry projects to feed their children using a room in their homes or a corner in their rooftops to rear chicken and put them up for sale at very low prices.
Head of the Department of Animal Production at the Ministry of Agriculture Taher Abu Hamad also told the PIC that urgent measures have to be taken to make up for such heavy losses.
He recommended recourse to water-spraying poultry roofs and walls in case of a sudden upsurge in the average temperature. He further suggested noshing poultry with vitamin C so as to curtail thermal shock.
He added that the Ministry of Agriculture will keep in touch with poultry farmers so as to caution them against any projected weather fluctuations both in the summer and winter seasons.
The Gaza Strip is in need of about two million mature chickens reared in nearly 1400 farms along with hundreds of tons of frozen chopped chicken imported from the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.
The crisis in poultry business is another red alert that has been declared in Gaza mostly inhabited by small artisans farmers fishermen and traders. A one-decade-long blockade imposed by the Israeli occupation has made life in the enclave a hell on earth.
