SERDANG, May 11 — The government will not get involved in the allocation of chicken egg subsidies between integrators and contract farmers, Agriculture and Food Security Ministry (KPKM) deputy secretary-general (Development) Datuk Badrul Hisham Mohd said today.
The distribution of the subsidy must be negotiated between integrators and egg suppliers as a business-to-business arrangement, he told reporters.
“The egg subsidy is still being managed by the ministry and will proceed as decided until June 30, 2023.
“But regarding the formula of the distribution, we are actually maintaining what was established over a year ago,” he told a press conference at his ministry’s open house for Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
The current rate of the subsidy allocates 70 sen to the integrator and 10 sen to the contract farmer, he added.
“When the integrators and contract farmers agreed (on a rate), the government was not involved.
“That was a business arrangement,” he said.
The government had offered the subsidy as a measure to absorb costs and had left the rest of the arrangement up to businesses to decide, he explained.
In February, national news agency Bernama reported KPKM as saying that the chicken egg subsidy will continue till the end of June at a cost of RM1.28 billion to the government.
After June, KPKM minister Mohamad Sabu reportedly said that the prices of chicken eggs will be floated as part of efforts to ensure food security.
