Chicken farmer struggles to restart business

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Yudhi sits in front of his home in Dukuh Mekar, Parung, West Java, looking at his two empty chicken pens. He has little money left after most of his birds died in January.

"I had more than 7,000 chickens in these coops only two months ago. I felt rich at that time. I even planned to add another while paying my debts by using profits from the sale of the chickens," Yudhi, 32, said.

Then, one by one, all his chickens began to die. The cause of the incident remained a mystery to him until newspapers reported the outbreak of bird flu. The poultry business plunged as people became reluctant to eat chicken. Yudhi killed and burnt all his chickens left alive to prevent the spread of the disease.

"I simply lost everything. Last week, the creditor asked me to pay all his money back or he would take my coops. I had to empty out our savings and borrow money from someone else to pay this debt. I told one of my children not to go to school temporarily to cut expenses," Yudhi said pointing to his 12 year-old son, Syamsul, who has just entered junior high school.

With the help of his mother and his wife, he had devoted his time and energy to his chicken business in the knowledge that after each 33-day cycle, he would harvest a big gain.

"I lost at least Rp 12 million because of the disease and I don't know how to support my wife, mother and my two children," Yudhi said.

Yudhi began his business by borrowing money from an usurer who charged him an interest rate of 10 percent a month, 10 times higher than most banks' lending rates, confident he could make a high profit.

The government has reiterated its willingness to help chicken farmers like Yudhi by encouraging banks to provide them loans with simple requirements. One of the state-controlled banks, BRI, announced recently that it had allocated 1.5 percent of its total funds, or Rp 450 billion, for the affected farmers.

"Bank, what bank? I did try to get loan from several nearby banks but their requirements were so complicated. They asked for collateral for the loan, which I didn't have. Until now, I've never heard about any of my fellow farmers obtaining loans from them," Yudhi said.

Yudhi's family is one of hundreds of thousands of chicken- farming families across the country who are struggling to get back on their feet after the bird flu began to destroy their businesses in November last year.

According to Indonesian Poultry Information Center chairman Hartono, there are over 250,000 small-scale farmers nationwide, most of who went bankrupt because of the disease.

Prior to the outbreak of the bird flu, these farmers accounted for 35 percent of the nation's total chicken production of 1.2 million tons, worth Rp 4 trillion per year. Most of them started their businesses using their own money, or from loans by relatives or usurers.

"Unless the government steps in to help out the farmers, many of them will not go back to their poultry businesses and will find other businesses instead," Hartono said.

Yudhi's story showed how a man initially able to support his family with his small business had suddenly found himself impoverished.

The latest government data released prior to the outbreak of the disease showed the number of poor people who earned less than US$1 a day had reached 34 million. The bird flu is likely to have boosted these figures and further complicated the government's efforts to alleviate poverty nationwide.

Meanwhile, Yudhi continues to sit in front of his coops, wondering if his son will ever go back to school again.