Poultry farmer optimistic despite bird flu fiasco

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

Bird flu, which hit poultry businesses in East Java province several months ago, has not forced local poultry businessman Paul Iskandar to go under.

The disease has indeed decreased chicken egg production in the province by 10 percent, from a normal production capacity of 70,000 tons per month, causing billions of rupiah in losses to local poultry businesses.

But the outspoken Paul, who is also chairman of the East Java Fowl Breeders Association (PPUI), has said that he was optimistic that the poultry business would revive and yield large profits after the bird flu disaster subsides.

When The Jakarta Post and Koran Tempo visited him at his home in Darmo Permai housing complex, Surabaya, recently, he appeared calm, despite the disaster.

Paul has a 3.5 hectare poultry farm in Pandaan, Pasuruan regency, East Java.

Despite his outward calm, he acknowledged in the interview that the magnitude of the bird flu outbreak was incredible.

When the government announced the spread of the epidemic in Indonesia recently, the Japanese agriculture department banned imports of poultry and poultry products from Indonesia.

"That's the reality of the fate of poultry farmers and entrepreneurs in Indonesia, particularly in East Java," he said.

He said that following the outbreak in East Java, many egg- layer farmers had incurred losses of around Rp 160 billion (US$19 million) in the period October to December 2003.

Four million fowl perished during that period. The figure was around 40 percent of the 10 million total poultry population nationwide that has died due to the bird flu disease.

The drastic decrease in public demand for eggs and poultry meat was not included in the loss.

Besides, poultry farmers have incurred other losses. They had to import H5N1-type vaccine from China, which was more costly than vaccine locally produced.

The price of the vaccine from China costs Rp 950 per 0.5 ml. ampule, much more expensive than that produced by the Veterinary Pharmaceutical Center (Pusvetma), at Rp 161.

"I haven't calculated the losses incurred, but I have to fork out around Rp 7.4 million monthly to buy vaccine from China," he said.

Apart from that, several East Java exporters were in turmoil as Japan, which imported last year 2,215 tons of poultry meat and 757 tons of processed poultry products from Indonesia, stopped importing due to bird flu.

"Overseas buyers have not imported poultry meat from East Java for the past two months," he said.

The types of fowl no longer exported were egg-layers, meat and day-old chickens (DOCs). "They already knew about it before the government publicly acknowledged the epidemic recently," he said.

Currently, export destinations are the Philippines, Japan and Singapore. East Java exports only poultry meat to Japan and not DOCs.

For that reason, the export of fowl from East Java has stopped in the meantime. Farmers will concentrate more on warding off the epidemic at the moment.

To prevent contamination, around 45,000 of his birds would be given the H5N1 vaccine routinely once every four months.

Besides that, the farmers had also hired a veterinarian specially to attend to his fowls.

Despite the fact that many farmers have suffered losses, the prospects for poultry farming in the future are very good as public demand for eggs and meat is still high.

In East Java alone, the demand for eggs reaches 15,000 tons monthly, while demand for meat is higher.

"I'm optimistic market opportunities for eggs, whether export or domestic, will still be high, although the price of eggs as of the end of January is around Rp 7,000 per kilogram," he said.