UAE's poultry sector remains dependent on the imports
A drop in imports compared to initial estimates is expected to be announced as a result of all these factors. Still, UAE’s domestic poultry production is far from a self-sufficiency rate, imports being the response to the demand, despite the fact that local companies have tried to extend their businesses and production capacity. Local production covers only 11% of UAE’s poultry consumption and major UAE poultry producers anticipate 2018 production to remain comparable to 2017 volume as no
new facility is scheduled to come online this year.
Brazil, the big player
UAE’s poultry imports are based on Brazilian and USA products, with the South American state dominating the game from a 70% market share. The main obstacles in expanding the local businesses remain the feed costs, animal disease and a strong price competition from imports. Also, as long as the UAE federal government doesn’t provide subsidies or financial support to the UAE poultry industry, the market remains open for products imported from Saudi Arabia or Oman, where the sector is supported by the authorities. Only the local government of Abu Dhabi is an exception in this case with a direct subsidy equal to approximately 25-30% of the value of select feed purchases granted to producers from the Emirate.
At this point, 4 local companies are responsible for 50% of the internal production with the biggest of them, Al Rawda, having a capacity of 23% in broilers production of the UEA. The rest is represented by small farms an backyard poultry producers, as detailed in a USDA report.
Biosecurity risks
In order to expand their operations, UAE’s poultry producers have started to buy birds from small producers in the country but
that also increased the risk in biosecurity and ended up in affecting the local production by 10 to 25 percent as the bird flu started to spread in the country. Regulations are in order since the outbreak of the disease, a decade ago, but controlling
it is still challenging for the local producers.
Low quality
According to the Islamic law, all locally produced chickens are to be slaughtered by hand in order to meet the Halal compliance.
This procedure is generating a downgrade of quality of 15% local production, further processing of locally produced chicken is limited to chicken franks and chicken parts, particularly breasts and drumsticks.
Major poultry operations in UAE are generally fully integrated and include on-farm slaughtering facilities. The average rate of
weight gain per bird is reported at 0.04 kilograms (kg) per day. Live chickens are generally slaughtered once reaching 1.3kg.
The feed conversion rate is reported at approximately 1.5kg of feed per 1kg of chicken meat. Based on major producer estimates, there are 22 poultry farms operating in the UAE and none of them announced any investments in the near future.
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