we have the Pilgrims (a people who are celebrated atThanksgiving, a holiday that did not exist until the Civil War), who cameashore at Plymouth Rock (a place only designated as such in the lateeighteenth century). The quintessential American holiday was associatedwith the native turkey to help promote the struggling poultry industryduring the Civil War.

The country has exported 320,240.46 MT of Poultry products to the world for the worth of Rs. 529.81 Crores/ 71.04 USD Millions during the year 2021-22.

In terms of total meat production, India ranks 5th globally with the production of 8.60 million tonnes of meat in 2019-20. In 2020-21, meat production has increased to 8.80 million tonnes (BAHS, 2021). The Indian meat industry has exhibited steady growth in terms of meat production in the last decade as illustrated in figure 1. However, the annual growth rate has not been seen following any particular trend.

India has a large areadevoted to corn production, and average yields ofabout 1.8 tons per hectare are well below those inmany other countries, including the United States(8.0 tons/ha.), China (4.4 tons/ha.), and Thailand (3.2

These assumptions could lead the analy-sis to overstate the impacts on demand for corn andsoybean meal, but two factors suggest that theassumptions are appropriate. First, the assumedration shares for poultry (55 percent for corn and 20percent for soybean meal) are significantly belowthe averages (60 percent and 29 percent) providedby integrated producers in the field survey. Theassumptions for egg producers are also below thoseprovided by informed sources. Thus, some scope forsubstitution is already built into the assumptions

Feed is the single largest cost item in poultry production,accounting for 55-64 percent of variable costs in India

Estimates by P.Kumar indicate that coarse grains as an aggregate arean inferior good for food use with an expenditure elas-ticity of food demand in the range of -.10 to -.20.

With the rapidgrowth in estimated feed use, feed now accounts formore than 42 percent of total corn use in India, and, ifrecent trends continue, this share will increase.

Different poultry breeds have significantly different rates of parthenogenesis, ranging from 0.16 percent in Barred Plymouth Rock chickens, to 3 percent in commercial turkeys, to 16.9 percent in Beltsville small white turkeys.