Price of Chicken Increases in the Markets

There are very few sellers who still sell chicken in the market now.

Taking a turn around some big markets where chicken is sold in Douala to check the prices of chicken, there is a remarkable increase in the price of chicken in the markets. At Marché des Chévres, in New Bell, in the section which sells chicken, there are just a few chickens which have been put up for sale and besides most of them look like premature. Besides being very small, they are bony and have no flesh.
Talking to a few customers, they complained of the increase in the price of chicken and their sizes and said they would rather resort to eating fish and meat. A lady added that at first she used to buy one chicken which suffices in her family for at least a week, but that with the sizes now one chicken cannot even suffice her entire household.
Turning to a seller of chicken, Noubissi Jean Eric, he told Cameroon Tribune it is not their fault and they do pity the situation. He added that they hardly have customers who come to buy now. He said it is mostly restaurant owners who do come to buy, because they want to keep their customers if not nobody would want to buy chicken that he will sell and not make any profits.
Noubissi said the main problem comes from the level of those who rear the chickens. He said they have complained that fowl feed is costing them a lot because there is an increase in the price of the components which make up chicken feed. This problem works in a chain which affects the consumer in the end. He said they who buy to sell they buy very expensive so they have to sell at a high rate not to make profit but sustain their capital. The little chickens which look like premature are being sold at FCFA 2500. But the bigger ones, the prices can get up to FCFA 3500.
Jean Claude Ngupkam, who rears chickens, told CT that it is not easy to rear the fowls now, because it costs a lot to do so. He said the prices of maize, soya beans and cry fish which they use in making chicken feed has increased and they would not want to sell at a lost. He added that in the period of fowl sickness, most of the chicken die because of poor feeding and no sufficient care and it is a great lost for them. Nevertheless he was optimistic things will be fine again and they will get back to their old prices.
EFFA TAMBENKONGHO