March 16, 2007

Indonesia's poultry feed requirements to rise 45 percent by 2010

Indonesia's growing poultry industry would increase feed requirements by about 45 percent over the next three years, according to the country's poultry producer associations.

Indonesia's feed requirements for broilers and layers could increase by more than three million tonnes annually or 45 percent over the next three years.

Feed usage of 7.15 million tonnes in 2006 was for a poultry industry having an estimated 1.075 billion broiler chicks and 52 million layer chicks, according to Don Utoyo, executive director of Indonesian association Gappi, at the ninth annual meeting of the federation of Asian poultry producers.

Last year's poultry feed tonnage was divided almost equally between broilers and layers.

By 2010, the number of day-old chicks produced in Indonesia may rise to 1.25-1.5 billion broilers and 90-100 million layers, giving a feed requirement of 10-11 million tonnes a year.

Production by Indonesian feedmills jumped from 4.8 million tonnes in 2000 to 7 million tonnes in 2005, based on data compiled by the American Soybean Association.

Broiler feed prices in Indonesia in early 2007 have been around US$350 a tonne, said Utopo, having risen from just US$190 in 2004.

Currently, broiler production is losing money as a production cost of Rp8500 per kilogram could only fetch a selling price of only Rp4500/kg. On-farm losses this year have been estimated at a nationwide US$2 million a day.