English
Indonesia
Milk Still on the Low
Boyolali - Dairy farmers in Boyolali district in Central Java and Bandung and West Bandung districts in West Java are complaining about the purchasing price for fresh milk by milk processing industries. The price has never increased since 2009, even though feed price keeps on climbing until farmers are left with a very thin profit margin.
The milk price for farmers in Boyolali ranges from Rp 2,700 to Rp 3,000 per liter, depending on the milk quality. Meanwhile industries purchase milk from co-operatives at Rp 3,100 to Rp 3,300 per liter. On the other side, cattle feed, such as rice pollard, have climbed from Rp 1,800 to Rp 2,200 per kilogram (kg), meanwhile concentrates have risen from Rp 1,500 to Rp 2,000 per kilogram.
Haryono (47), a farmer from Sumbung village, Cepogo subdistrict, in Boyolali, on Tuesday (18/1) said with the fixed price, he can only hope to gain profit from calves. Even to maintain his two productive dairy cows, the money he receives is still not enough.
With two cows producing 18 liters a day, he receives Rp 52,200. Meanwhile, ever day he spends Rp 38,000 to buy concentrate and cassava. Haryono is lucky he has some land where he can grow grass, so he does not have to buy that.
In Bandung and West Bandung, the increase of cattle feed price in the last month have jolted the production cost of dairy farmers to increase by 30 percent.
Awaludin (59), a dairy farmer from Pasirhalang village, Cisarua, West Bandung, said the price of concentrates since the end of last year has increase from Rp 1,000 to Rp 1,800-Rp 2,000 per kilogram. The price of grass has also risen from previously Rp 200-Rp 400 to Rp 600-Rp 800 per kilogram.
“Now farmers are no longer thinking about profit. Just being able to hang in there is already good,” said Awaludin. Asep Dahlan (58), a dairy farmer in Pangalengan, Bandung district, admitted that the high feed price is burdening dairy farmers. The maintenance cost of his 4 cows is now Rp 140,500 per day. To break even, the purchasing price from the co-operative must be Rp 3,500 per liter. But now, the price is at maximum Rp 3,000 per liter.
Rp 4.000 per liter
Secretary of Cepogo Village Unit Co-operative in Boyolali, Sumyani, said milk from farmers should have been bought at Rp 4,000 per liter. All along, farmers have received the lowest profit of the milk industry chain in Indonesia.
Sri Kuncoro, Chairman of the Indonesian Milk Co-operative Association (GKSI) for Central Java and Yogyakarta, said that milk processing industries are not giving a higher price for milk from Central Java because the quality is lower compared to milk from East and West Java.
Chairman of the Lembang North Bandung Dairy Farmer Co-operative, Dedi Setiadi, who is also the General Chairman of GKSI, admitted that they can’t do much on the purchase price given to farmers because it depends on the price milk is sold to processing industries.
General Manager of West Java GKSI, Yusup Munawar, said that based on data released by the International Farm Comparison Network, the milk price in Indonesia is the lowest for Southeast Asia. For example the price of one liter of fresh milk in Thailand is about Rp 4,370, in Vietnam Rp 4,000, in the Philippines Rp 5,022, and in Malaysia Rp 5,400. (GAL/GRE)
Source : Kompas