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| Sunday, 16 May 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Three Acre Farms counts 173 million chicks by Elmo Leonard Three Acre Farms Ltd (TAL) since inception in 1987, has recorded a total production and sales of 173 million day-old-chicks (DOC) and, if each chick is counted to be two inches in length and, if their numbers were lined up side-by-side, they would span the breath of Sri Lanka, 25 times. Answering questions, company directors, said that TAL, currently produces 30 percent of broiler DOCs and 60 percent of DOCs, bred as layers. TAL, in its annual report for the year ended December 2003, boasts of operating the largest and most modern poultry hatchery and breeding farm and the only grandparent poultry farm in the country. The company claims, that its Prima brand of commercial DOCs holds the preeminent position in terms of market share and is widely regarded as the best in quality, rapid growth, excellent feed conversion, exceptional liveability and parts yield in the market. Chairman, Cherng Chih Kwong Primus, told shareholders that for the year in review, total turnover increased by 24.1 percent to Rs 751.108 million when compared with Rs 605.304 million as against Rs 61.385 million for 2002. Primus, said that the company experienced widely disparate fortunes during 2003, recording Rs 50.625 million profit up to the third quarter, and a loss of Rs 95.995 million in the fourth quarter. "An amount of Rs 82.047 million of this loss is attributable to writing down of intangible assets," Primus said. Shareholders were told that the feed mill industry across Asia-Pacific is presently in a sea of change due to a sharp rise in raw materials such as maize and soya meal rising approximately 42 and 38 percent respectively to historic heights and leading to higher cost of DOC and broilers. Additionally, the government had from January 2004 levied a 15 percent VAT band to the poultry and animal husbandry industry. Primus said that levying of such high indirect taxes on an important industry concerned with nutritional products, would curb the growth of this dynamic industry in the longer-term. |
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