Kanatalouden teknillinen ja taloudellinen kehitys siipikarjanhoitajain liiton kirjanpitoiminnan tulosten valossa

Authors

• N. Westermarck Helsingin yliopiston maanviljelystalouden laitos

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.71525

Abstract

Research work concerning the profitability of poultry farming and particularly of egg production, based on bookkeeping, was included in the programme of the Finnish Poultry Breeders’ Association (Siipikarjanhoitajain Liitto) in the year 1932. The work has been confined to actual egg production farms which either buy, or hatch their chicks themselves, and which sell eggs but to no considerable degree breeding fowls. General technical information is given in Table 1. As can be seen the number of bookkeeping poultry farms has fluctuated considerably. It is especially interesting to note how the average outputs have clearly increased. At the beginning and during the middle of the 30’s, the average output on bookkeeping poultry farms was, in general, on the 150-egg level. After the war egg production has perceptibly increased so, that during the past ten years the production has risen by approximately 25 eggs per hen. the average outputs at present being approximately 200 eggs. There has been a change in the seasonal egg production in that the September-November outputs in the year 1933 were 17 per cent of the total production, in 1950 they were 19 per cent, and by 1959 they had grown to be as much as 24 per cent. There has thus been a clear change over to late autumn production. It may be noted that culling seems to be more stringent now than it was a decade or so ago. A matter which gives some cause for anxiety is the increase in the relative number of hens dying before culling. It is obvious that the present death percentages are higher than previously. Table 1 gives, in addition, information about the consumption of feeds. It is understandable that during the 30’s the feed consumption per hen was less, since even the production level was lower. By home grown feed is to be understood feed produced on the farm in question. Purchased feeds might include imported feeds as well as feeds produced elsewhere in the country. With reference to the production of eggs, the efficiency of the production can be gauged on the basis of the feed units used, the labour consumption, or on the basis of the use of other means of production per kilogram of eggs. Table 2 reveals that the efficiency of production has increased when comparing the situation during the last years of the 50’s with the beginning of the same decade or with the financial years of the 30’s. Table 2 also contains certain information relating to the development of the economics of egg production, or more correctly, certain figures connected with it. So that the results of various years might be more easily compared, prices and other monetary units have been converted to the 1959 price level on the basis of the general wholesale price index of home market goods. Table 3 presents data regarding the profitability of poultry farming. Figures indicating the gross returns and the production costs have been converted to coincide with the 1959 price level on the basis of the general wholesale price index of home market goods. The net profit as well as the family income per hen have been used as the measuring rod for the profitability of poultry farming. The net profit is the difference between the gross return and the production costs, whereas in computing the family income the family’s own labour and interest costs are not regarded as costs. The family income thus indicates the compensation which poultry farming has been able to provide for the labour of the farmer and his family and for the capital invested in the enterprise. Both the net profit as well as the family income during the latter half of the 50’s have clearly remained below the corresponding profitability figures of the first half of the same decade as well as those of the 30’s. This situation arises from the declining price level of eggs. The rise in egg production has not provided adequate compensation and the calculated profitability per hen has clearly decreased. Since in the last analysis it is the aim of the poultry farmer to obtain the greatest possible family income from his enterprise as a whole and not so much per hen, he has endeavoured to compensate the reduction in profitability per hen by increasing his stock so that the family income of the enterprise would not decline. This is revealed in Table 4, which clearly indicates a steady increase in the number of chickens per poultry farm.