Rising farming costs: the industry bids farewell to the low-cost era

Eggs are an indispensable agricultural product in our country's vegetable basket project, and in recent years the cost of laying hen farming has risen year after year. The cost of laying hen farming mainly includes feed cost, chick cost, disease prevention and treatment fees, labor cost, water and electricity fees, and depreciation of fixed assets and equipment, among others; any change in any one of these will affect changes in the cost of eggs to varying degrees. In the overall composition of production costs, feed accounts for the largest share, about 60%-70% of the total cost. The main raw materials in laying hen feed are corn and soybean meal, accounting for about 60%-65% and 20%-25% of feed cost respectively; chick cost accounts for about 15%-20%. Chick cost determines the quality of chicks to a certain extent, and chick quality is related to the growth rate, egg production, disease resistance, and survival rate of laying hens, making it a potential factor affecting egg prices; while labor cost has continued to rise in recent years, and its share in overall cost has also expanded year by year; furthermore, with the rapid development of the laying hen farming industry, the types and frequency of diseases have shown a clear upward trend. The proportion of disease prevention and treatment fees for various vaccines, quarantine, and medicines used for the prevention and treatment of chicken diseases in total feeding costs has risen markedly, with an average annual increase of about 5% in recent years.

Looking ahead to 2015, it is expected that the farming cost of laying hens will continue to rise, for three reasons: first, labor cost and disease prevention and treatment fees continue to rise year after year; second, as farming profits remain high, chick prices next year will also see a wave of increases; third, the sluggish prices of feed raw materials in the second half of this year will be difficult to reproduce in the future, and prices will also move upward in the future.