English
Indonesia
Dairy Farmers Convert to Beef Cattle
Semarang - The decision of the milk processing industry (IPS) to lower the purchasing price for fresh milk produced by farmers has made a majority of dairy farmers in Central Java convert their business to beef cattle. According to most farmers the purchasing price set by the IPS is not enough to cover the production cost. In the long run, this situation will reduce domestic production of fresh milk.
“This is a repetition of the time when milk price fell before 2006. At that time dairy farmers also chose to breed beef cattle. The low price of dairy cows was one of the indicators at that time,” said Chairman of the Central Java Dairy Farmer Association, Agus Warsito, on Thursday (14/5) in Getasan, Semarang district, Central Java.
Agus said the price of dairy cows with milk production of 10 liters per day had dropped by 1.5 to 2 million rupiahs from its normal price of 13 million rupiahs per cow. This occurred because many farmers are selling their cows.
Chairman of the Association of Milk Coorperatives in Indonesia (GKSI) for Central Java, Sri Kuncoro, said the lowering of fresh milk purchasing price by 100 rupiahs per liter by June 2009 will make life difficult for farmers.
He explained that before, milk purchasing price from IPS through GKSI Central Java had gone down twice, by 200 rupiahs and 100 rupiahs per liter. “This will greatly burden farmers. We usually buy milk through brokers. So the purchasing price will be cut again by the cooperative’s operational cost and broker. That’s why farmers then chose to convert to beef cattle,” said Chairman of the Getasan Village Unit Cooperative, Joko Hariyanto.
He explained that with the purchase price at cooperative level 3,050 rupiahs per liter, the actual price at farmers are only 2,800 rupiahs per liter. Meanwhile, just for feed, farmers must spend 20,000 rupiahs per cow.
General Chairman of GKSI, Dedi Setiadi, said an emergency effort the government could do to save dairy farms is to give a price stimulus.
Price disparity between the purchasing price from the IPS and the appropriate price ideal for farmers is 500 rupiahs per kilogram. National milk production per day is 1.4 million liters, so the required subsidy is only 255.5 billion rupiahs per year. “This stimulus is minor compared to the destruction of dairy farming which took a lot of effort to build,” he said.
The current population of dairy cows in Indonesia is around 380,000 cows which are managed by 127,000 farmers. (MAS/GAL)
Source : Kompas