Is contract broiler farming exploitative to small farmers?

Abstract

A study of 49 contract broiler farmers under 4 leading integrators in and around Puducherry revealed that the contract is one sided favouring the integrator as the contract stipulates standards for the outputs from the farmer but it does not specify any standards for the inputs the integrator supplies such as weight of the day-old chick, quality standards for feed and medicines. The findings also indicated that the weight of the day-old chicks supplied was less than the standard weight of 40 g, an important cause for low body weight gain as well as high mortality. Although the integrators are bearing the risk of production and marketing, the contract broiler farming is exploitative as the integrators are paying on an average ` 4.61/bird, mostly on the basis of production cost. The integrators may do well by bearing the cost of the miscellaneous inputs being provided by the farmers and by taking feed conversion ratio as the basis for payment rather than production cost on which the farmer has very little control.