KUALA LUMPUR, May 18 — A group of poultry industry cartels has planned to close poultry farms on Saturday and Sunday to protest against the government’s delay in subsidy payment.
Malay daily Utusan Malaysia, quoting sources, said that a circular was issued yesterday by a livestock farm company in Melaka to suppliers informing them that the supply of chicken will be stopped on May 21 and 22 on the grounds of ‘problems in the livestock farm’.
“I believe their intention is to boycott the government, consumers and others.
“The reason they are doing that is because of the increasing cost of bran and chicks as well as the delay in getting subsidies from the authorities.
“The government does not care even though many suppliers and consumers complain that they cannot get enough supply of chicken,” the source said.
Utusan last week shed light on the cartel that controls the market price of chicken in the country, giving rise to the volatility in prices in recent times.
It said almost the entire chain of the livestock industry is controlled by several large cartels that use associations as a method of disguising their actions.
The sources added that the closure of the poultry farms will result in the market no longer being able to meet consumer demand, with the chain likely to be completely severed when this happens.
The source also blamed the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumers Affairs (KPDNHEP) for not solving the issue of farmers who have been burdened with the rising cost of operations due to the high prices of wheat and chicken feed.
“KPDNHEP needs to solve this problem but they just want to be the ‘champion’ to keep the price cheap without solving the main problem of the farmers.
“Maybe this is the time for them to do something so that the government starts taking it seriously. If not, the war between the farmers and the authorities will continue, and the victims will be ordinary people,” said the source.
