Citing tripartite talks conducted recently by the Karnataka government involving corporate broiler entities for increasing the rearing rate, poultry farmers in Palladam hub and surroundings in Tiruppur district urged the Tamil Nadu government to follow suit.After the tripartite talks, the Karnataka government had prevailed upon broiler companies to increase the basic rearing wage from ₹6.20 to ₹10 a kg.In Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Protection Association has been conducting a sustained campaign for increasing the minimum rearing rate to ₹20 a kg.Several hundreds of poultry farmers who are members of the association stopped production at the start of this year, demanding that the government meet their long-standing demand. In January, over 3,000 farmers gathered in Chennai, demanding tripartite negotiations. The then State government had promised to conduct the meeting later in the month.In the meantime, however, police cases were registered against poultry farmers on the charge levelled against them by broiler companies, which claimed that the protests led to the death of the birds. Founder of the association Easan Murugasamy and many others were arrested and imprisoned.The government, according to the farmers, had subsequently gone back on its promise to hold the tripartite meeting and instead asked the farmers to submit individual petitions.Despite 18,000 farmers across Tamil Nadu having submitted the petitions, the Animal Husbandry Department had not taken any action, Mr. Murugasamy said, alleging that the previous regime had received huge funds for the Assembly polls from the corporate broiler companies to register police cases at their behest to suppress the protests.Taking a cue from the Tamil Nadu farmers, their Karnataka counterparts had launched a protest demanding that they be paid ₹26 per kg as the basic rearing rate. The Karnataka government responded by convening a tripartite meeting and increasing the rearing rate from ₹6.20 to ₹10.Mr. Murugasamy said the expenditure on accounts of manpower employed for poultry farms in Tamil Nadu, electricity bill and inputs such as coir pith, was comparatively much higher in Tamil Nadu. Published - June 06, 2026 07:20 pm IST