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)