Breeders bemoan slump in sales as reports on bird flu surface

The Jakarta Post, Medan/Makassar/Bandung

Sales of chicken nationwide have been in the doldrums for the past few weeks with the bird flu virus making the national headlines, chicken breeders complained on Tuesday.

Hendri, from a chicken hatchery in Medan, said that before the story on the bird flu virus appeared in the media, he could sell some 1 million chicks per month.

"But now, I can only sell some 200,000 chicks a week," said Hendri, who had been sitting idle in his office chair.

His eyes gazed to the street outside the office, waiting for customers.

A similar story could be found in Bandung, West Java, with chicken breeders complaining that sales of chicken had dropped by 20 percent over the past four days.

Heri Darmawan, chairman of East Priangan Chicken Breeders Association that has some 13,000 members, called on government officials and the media to stop making comments that scared people. "The comments have scared people so now they avoid eating chicken, which of course reduces our sales," said Heri.

He was commenting on responses by government officials and the media on the bird flu issue. Some government officials in the provinces have said that bird flu has already spread into their areas and killed chickens, while the media had often reported on people allegedly infected with the bird flu virus.

According to Heri, the impact of the negative publicity has been severe for breeders, moreover most of them are small time operators with less than 2,000 chickens.

Heri assured government officials and the media that chicken breeders already knew how to avoid bird flu.

"The government conducted research recently in our area, and there was no reports of the bird flu virus spreading to our area," said Heri.

While breeders in Bandung and Medan have seen their chicken sales slump due to the bird flu virus, breeders in South Sulawesi province complained that their farms had been devastated by the virus.

Haji Made, a chicken breeder, said that 23,000 of his 60,000 chickens had mysteriously died recently, causing him to suffer large material losses. Haji Made was forced to lay off four of his 10 employees. He has also cut the salaries of other workers by 50 percent in order to survive the situation. The drastic measures had to be taken as he still had to pay back a bank loan.

"I have borrowed Rp 400 million from the bank to develop the chicken breeding business and I have to pay Rp 5 million in installments every month. As the business was down, I had to sell my cars and a plot of land to pay the installments," said Made, who has been in the chicken breeding business for 28 years.

Arsyad, another chicken breeder, shared a similar story. His 1,000 chickens, between 22 and 25 days old, suddenly died in at the end of June and he says they were killed by bird flu.