Egg farmers feel the crunch of the crisis

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Local egg farmers are the latest to be hit by the monetary crisis and many of them are now on the brink of bankruptcy, according to a businessman.

H. Ruyono Sumowidigdo, the chairman of Yogyakarta's Center for Marketing Information of Poultry Products, said recently the situation was aggravated by the long dry spell. The supply of poultry fodder had not only grown scarce, but the price had also skyrocketed, he said.

Corn -- which makes up between 40 percent and 45 percent of the fodder -- presently costs the farmers about Rp 775 (15 cents US), Rp 800 per kilogram. It was only Rp 425 last August.

The price of rice siftings needed for the fodder mixture have also increased, as has the "concentrate", a protein-rich mixture of materials necessary for the fodder.

The price of the concentrate, which makes up between 30 percent and 35 percent of the fodder, was only Rp 800 per kilogram in August. It is now Rp 1,400 per kilogram.

"Over the last two weeks, the concentrate's price has increased up to Rp 235 a kilogram. This is extraordinary. It's never happened before," Ruyono said.

The price hike explains why ready-for-use fodder which previously cost the producers about Rp 700 per kilogram, now costs them Rp 1,100 per kilogram.

"This situation is threatening many egg farmers. About 25 percent of them are facing bankruptcy," Ruyono said. There are about 1,000 egg farmers in Yogyakarta.

"Bankruptcy is only a matter of time for them," he said, adding the fodder's price increase has now exceeded any profit they could gain from the egg price.

According to Ruyono, a profitable egg producing chicken business requires an ideal price ratio of at least 1:4 with one for the egg's price and four for the fodder. Therefore, if the fodder is Rp 1,100 per kilogram, for example, the egg has to be sold at a price of at least Rp 4,400 per kilogram.

At present the farmers sell their eggs for between Rp 2,700 and Rp 2,900 per kilogram. They sell in the market for about Rp 3,200.

"We realize that asking for Rp 4,400 is too much. Therefore, we are calling on the government to help us so we can have easier access to fodder," said Setiawan, an egg farmer from Pakem, 20 kilometers north of here.

He said it was difficult to find wheat to substitute rice siftings. Bogasari company's product, polard has been inexplicably unavailable in the market for some time.

"Farmers have to buy the rice siftings' substitute through village cooperatives. Unfortunately, we do not have any cooperatives," he said.

"We are asking the government to, if necessary, conduct market operations so that we can buy corn and fodder," he said.

Setiawan currently has 30,000 egg producing chickens. For the past two months, he has suffered a loss of about Rp 2 million daily. Another producer from Pakem, Yudianto, who has 20,000 chickens, agreed the present situation was difficult.

"To help reduce the loss, we sell chickens which no longer lay eggs, and use the money to buy fodder for productive chickens," Setiawan said.

"But even selling the chickens cannot cover the loss. We are doing it only to survive a little longer," Yudianto said.

He said the government should help egg farmers because it is a labor intensive business and therefore absorbs workers. One worker was needed for every 2,000 chickens, he said.

Yogyakarta is home to more than 1,000 egg producing chicken farmers, raising between them about two million chickens. Most of them are small-scale entrepreneurs who breed less than 10,000 chickens, while others raise less than 5,000 chickens.

At the start of this year, Yogyakarta egg farmers produced between 80 and 90 tons of eggs per day. Only 30 tons of them were for local consumption; the rest were sold to other cities mostly in West Java. (swa)