Feedmeal producers ready to help farms

Feedmeal producers ready to help farms

JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Feedmeal Producers (GPMT)
will supply 750,000 tons of fodder to struggling small and medium
poultry farms, a senior official of the Ministry of Agriculture
said recently.

Director General of Animal Husbandry Erwin Soetirto was quoted
by Antara as saying that the association was ready to supply
fodder to some poultry production centers.

"GPMT has promised to supply 750,000 tons of fodder to fulfill
the increasing demand for the next two months," he said.

GPMT's commitment was part of an agreement last week between
the Ministry of Agriculture, GPMT and the Association of
Indonesian Poultry Farmers (PPUI).

Erwin declined to give further details about the mechanism to
distribute fodder.

However, he said that the ministry would give priority in
distributing the fodder to farms which were on the brink of
collapse due to increasing feedmeal prices.

Fodder is scarce and expensive because of the prolonged dry
season and the sharp depreciation of the rupiah against the U.S.
dollar, he said.

Erwin said the price increase had significantly reduced
poultry farmers' income because it was not followed by a
significant rise in the price of eggs and chicken meat.

"Because their incomes drop, farmers cannot not repay their
debts to feedmeal producers, who refuse to give more stocks if
the debts have not been settled," he said.

PPUI's chairman Alie Aboebakar said his association urged the
government to allow farmers to import ready-for-use fodder
because the imported fodder was cheaper than local products.

"Local ready-for-use fodder is more expensive because some of
its raw materials are imported," he said.

He said ready-for-use fodder's price in West Java was
currently more than Rp 1,500 (25 U.S. cents). In the middle of
December last year it was Rp 1,050.

"Bankruptcy is only a matter of time for poultry farms," he
said, adding that feed price increases had exceeded the profit
farmers could make from egg and chicken meat sales.

He said fodder price increases had raised farmers' production
costs to Rp 3,500 per kilogram, while chicken meat was only about
Rp 2,600 per kilogram.

"If more and more poultry farms go out of business, there will
be a scarcity of chicken meat and eggs on the market next month,"
he said. (gis)