Poultry Farmers Under Pressure

BANDUNG(SINDO) – In the last five months, feed price has increased 26% from 3,225 rupiahs to 4,075 rupiahs in January 2008.
This price raise is troubling for farmers. Because with the public’s financial abilities still struggling to recover, the price of products is still under the break even point (BEP).
Chief of the Indonesia Animal Husbandry Bachelor Association (Ikatan Sarjana Peternakan Indonesia/IPSI), Yudi Guntara, said that the high feed price is a ramification of increase in the price of feed ingredients, such as corn from USD 220 to USD 306 per ton, soy bean meal (SBM) from USD 320 to USD 500 per ton, meat bone meal (MBM) from USD 410 to USD 575 per ton, and corn gluten meal (CGM) from USD 530 to USD 675 per ton.

“The rise in feed ingredient price is predicted to continue because in exporting countries such as America, corn will still be used for biofuel therefore supplies will automatically be reduced,” said Yudi on Tuesday (22/1) night.
Yudi said the feed price increase is not balance by the price of poultry, which is still between 8,000 – 9,000 rupiahs per kilogram. Because of that, breeder companies cut down their production up to 30%, causing the price of day old chicks (DOC) to rise from 250 rupiahs in the beginning of January to 2,650 rupiahs per chick today.
“The break even point for chickens for now is about 10,500 rupiahs per kilogram. If the price is still around 9,000 rupiahs per kilogram, of course farmers will suffer loss. Meanwhile, if the price of chickens is raised to the normal price of 12,000 per kilogram, consumers will be the one to suffer,” said Yudi. He also said that nationally, breeders produce 26 million chicks a week.
But because of low demand, their production has decreased to only 17 million chicks a week. This could cause a decrease in chicken meat supply in the next 1 to 2 months. Nutrition expert from the Faculty of Animal Husbandry of Padjajaran University, Hery Supratman, said that in advanced countries such as America, biofuel is mostly made from corn and soy bean.
Meanwhile Indonesia imports around 600,000 tons of corn each year, mostly from America, China and India. He is worried that when the government launches the soybean independency program and prepares no less than 2 million hectares field, at that time there will be a shortage of corn supply.
He thinks that the government should view the public needs, particularly the agribusiness industry from all angles. “It is possible when we have sufficient soybean supplies, there won’t be enough corn. Plans to reduce import tax for corn from 5% to 0% seem to have no significant effect in lowering the price,” said Hery.
Contacted separately, Expert Staff of the Indonesia Poultry Farmer Association (Perhimpunan Peternak Unggas Indonesia/PPUI), Waryo Sahru, said that in West Java only about 4,000 out of 8,000 farms are still active. The high feed price and chick price that is not followed by an increase in the product price is greatly affecting farmers. Besides stopping production, there are also some other farms forced to reduce production to 50%.
Reduction was done to maintain the capital. “Most farms that stopped production are waiting until the situation has returned to normal,” he said. Waryo added that the existence of integrated foreign companies, which produce from chick to meat, also has a role in the problems faced by local farmers. (sirojul muttaqien)