The government will accelerate the export of eggs to tackle a domestic oversupply as domestic egg consumption has sharply dropped due to a drastic fall in foreign tourist arrivals and more students learning online as part of pandemic protocols.
Internal Trade Department Director-General Wattanasak Sur-iam said domestic egg consumption has dropped to about 38 million eggs a day, while domestic egg production stands at 42 million eggs a day. He said the Commerce Ministry pledged to speed up the export of around 200 million eggs by the end of August.
According to Mr Wattanasak, the Egg Board has also agreed to provide 51 million baht allocated from the farmers’ assistance fund to support farmers, traders and exporters with management costs such as packing, transport and egg grading, at a rate of 50 satang per egg to help tackle the domestic oversupply.
There are 130,000 households of chicken egg farmers, with Thailand’s egg market worth 40 billion baht last year, down by 43% from 2019. The current retail prices are lower than farmers’ production cost, which averages 2.70 baht per egg. (NNT)
