Farmers warn of smuggling of chicken eggs and meat

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With the country's poultry farmers yet to recover from the devastating impact of bird flu, they now face a new threat: an influx of much cheaper chicken eggs and meat smuggled from neighboring Malaysia.

Indonesian Poultry Information Center chairman Hartono urged the government to immediately take action against the smugglers, who have reportedly bribed customs and other officials to facilitate their smuggling operations.

Hartono explained that the smuggled chicken eggs and meat would not only hurt local farmers, but could potentially be carrying new strains of bird flu due to the failure to comply with quality control and quarantine requirements.

"We have done everything to prevent bird flu from spreading, including inoculating poultry at great expense, and culling millions of chickens over a period of weeks. But just as the government is getting the disease under control, the smugglers are creating a new threat," he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

He feared that without immediate government action, many of the country's 250 thousand chicken farmers would go out of business.

"Each farmer has at least four or five dependents to feed. These are the people who are at stake here," Hartono said.

When contacted by the Post, Anton, a chicken farmer in West Kalimantan confirmed the problem, saying that over the past few weeks, chicken eggs and meat had been smuggled into the province via the border with Malaysia's Sarawak.

He accused customs officials, police and local government officials to being in cahoots with the smugglers.

"The smugglers pay all these officials to be allowed to bring thousands tons of eggs and meat into Indonesia every day. From what I hear, Malaysia is experiencing a glut of chicken eggs and meat," said Anton.

At least 2 million illegal chicken eggs and tons of chicken meat were being sold in many areas of Kalimantan, such as Sintang, Kapuas Hulu, Sambas, Sanggau and Pontianak, for around Rp 250 per egg, with the meat being sold for Rp 6,000 per kilogram, he said.

"These prices are less than the production costs of local farmers," Anton said, pointing out that the production cost for eggs here was about Rp 400 per kg, and about Rp 7,000 per kg for meat.

A Medan farmer, Rahman, said the situation in Sumatra was similar, with millions of eggs and tons of meat being smuggled from Johor, Malaysia, to Dumai and Tanjung Balai for distribution throughout Sumatra island.

"The smugglers cooperate with Navy officers, the customs and excise office and the quarantine office so as to be able to bring the eggs and meat in," he said.