Farmers Sell Their Chickens to Buy Feed
Chicken farmers in Blitar and Malang, East Java, have been forced to sell their productive chickens in order to be able to buy feed for other chickens.
The chickens "eating" chickens practice is being carried out to ensure that businesses will survive amid the fall of the selling price.
Didik Mariyono, 58, paused for a moment, weighing hundreds of eggs freshly collected from a cage, in the village of Selorejo, Selorejo district, Blitar. Inside the cage permanently built by the Malang and Blitar highway, there are about 10,000 chickens.
The chickens can produce about 300 kilograms of eggs every day. The number was slightly lower compared to about 3,500 kilograms in the previous three weeks. Didik had been forced to sell a number of chickens which are still productive.
The recent sales of about 1,600 chickens was the main cause of the decline in the production. The man who has been engaged in chicken farming for nine years said that he was forced to sell all the chickens in two of the seven cages to meet the feed needs.
He was actually reluctant to sell the chicken because most of them were still productive. The price of live chickens is Rp 19,000 each with an average weight of 1.5 kilograms. They were bought by chicken traders in the market. They then sold them in the form of meat, he said.
According to Didik, who relies on his poultry business to support his family, selling the productive chickens is one of options to enable him to buy feed, besides using his savings.
"Because of the price of eggs is too low compared to the operating costs and feed spending," he added.
Price falls
Since early January, 2017, chicken eggs in Blitar were sold only less than Rp 13,800 per kilogram. The price is far below the break-even point which is between Rp 16,000 and Rp 17,500 per kilogram.
Didik is pessimistic the price of eggs will increase if eggs for breeding produced by large poultry companies are still sold in the market. The Ramadan fasting month and Idul Fitri holidays will come in three months but that special moment may not be able to lift prices because the eggs from the big poultry companies are still circulating in the market.
According to farmers, the current egg prices are the lowest in the last nine years. Previously, the egg prices fell only to as low as Rp 14,000 and Rp 15,000 per kilogram. The fall did not last long because it recovered after some time. The measure to sell a part of the productive chickens was also carried out in southern Malang.
Bagus Sugiharto, 29, the chairman of the Mitra Makmur Sentosa chicken farmers group in Donomulyo village, Donomulyo district, Malang Regency, has sold about 1,500 of his 6,000 chickens. Not just Bagus, 50 other farmers who are also members of the chicken farmers group have also sold their chickens.
"Our group initially had 150,000 chickens but now we have only about 142,000 chickens. Between 8,000 and 9,000 chickens have been sold to buy feed," Bagus said.
Selling the chickens is not easy because of over-supply in the market, while demand is not rising. The price is Rp 19,000 each, but no one is buying.
Currently, farmers can no longer rely on the sales of eggs. As an illustration, every 1,000 chickens can produce between 50 and 53 kilograms of eggs a day. If the price of eggs in Donomulyo is Rp 13,400 per kg, farmers can earn between Rp 670,000 and Rp 710,000 per day. That amount is not enough to cover the costs to buy chicken feed, workers’ wages and electricity costs.
According to Bagus the farmers need about Rp 600,000 to buy feed for 1,000 chickens. Feed prices have risen from Rp 4,000 to Rp 5,000 per kg. In fact, every 1,000 chickens need about 120 kilogram of feed per day.
Bank loans
If the farmers are reluctant to sell their productive chickens, they have to raise money from a bank or borrow from loan sharks. Hariono, 32, a farmer in the village of Tlogosari, Donomulyo district, borrowed Rp 10 million. He has to pay it back for Rp 12 million in a month. The young poultry farmer has about 4,000 chickens, 2,000 of which are productive.
Hariono admits he is reluctant to sell productive chickens. "Therefore, I have to borrow from moneylenders despite high interest rates. I can no longer borrow from a bank because I still have a loan at the bank," he said.
In Blitar, poultry farmers have also sold a large amount of their chickens. Now, the number is only about 60 percent.
The chairman of the branch of the association of the national chicken farmers(PPRN) in Blitar, Rofi Yasikun said most of the farmers were no longer able to bear the operational costs.
"They are no longer capable. Farmers, who previously had 80,000 chickens, now only have about 30,000 chickens and those who initially had 5,000, now only have 3,000 chickens. They had to sell part of them even though they are still productive,” he added.
The fall in the price of eggs has severely hit farmers in Blitar. At present, Blitar is known as one of chicken egg production centers in East Java. The number of chicken farmers reaches about 4,321 people. The chicken population reaches about 15 million with a daily production of 450 tons of eggs per day.
Blitar can fulfill about 30 percent of national demand for eggs. The PPRN is now trying hard to increase the price. At least three meetings have been held with the Agriculture Ministry, namely in Surabaya in December 2016, and February 22, 2017 in Blitar, and February 23, 2017 in Yogyakarta.
During the last meeting, the Agricultural Ministry accepted the demands of the farmers to stop the sales of eggs from big poultry companies.
The ministry will also limit the big poultry companies’ chicken breeding activities to only 2 percent of the total. The remaining 98 percent will be carried out by the farmers.
At present, big poultry companies control about 20 percent. Thanks to the new policy, the price of eggs in Blitar rose to between Rp 13,800 and Rp 13,900 per kilogram.
The price of eggs in Malang also rose to Rp 13,800 per kilogram. In fact, on Monday, the price of eggs in Malang reached Rp 15,000 and Rp 15,500 per kilogram in Blitar.
The price increase is good news for chicken farmers. They hope the price will be better soon so that their business will recover again. Now, they have to closely guard the new government policy while facing new challenges, namely the rise in the corn price, the main raw material of chicken feed.