Delegation from the Indian association had traveled to Indonesia to promote oil meal products

A delegation from the Indian association had traveled to Indonesia to promote oil meal products. With a possible eye toward the country’s love affair with fried chicken, India hopes to more than triple its exports of soybean and rapeseed meal to Indonesia to 1.5 million tons within three to four years, compared with 400,000 tons last year.

The two types of meal, known collectively as oil meals, are used to produce poultry feed because of their high protein content. India is one of the world’s biggest producers of both.

Ashok Sethia, president of the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India, said the Indonesian market continued to grow despite the global economic crisis. “Increasing our export volume will mean increasing the value of our exports to $20 billion over the next three to four years, compared to the current value of the trade, which is about $10 billion,” Sethia said on the sidelines of trade talks between his group and the Poultry Feed Producers Association (GMPT) in Jakarta last month as reported by Jakarta Globe.

Desianto Budi Utomo, the general secretary of GMPT, welcomed the Indian delegation’s visit and said that trade was set to grow over the next six months.

Indonesia, he said, was a major and growing market for soybean and rapeseed meal given the country’s large poultry industry. “We never export poultry since the entire national production is consumed domestically.”

Desianto said that given the demand for poultry, the feed industry would continue to grow and would require additional sources of raw materials. On a negative note, however, Desianto said there were sometimes problems with the quality of Indian meal, with protein content frequently differing from one shipment to another. “This presents difficulties for feed producers as it causes inconsistencies in the protein content of feedstuffs,” he said.

As a result, he added, most Indonesian producers currently import meal from Brazil and the United States.

Sethia said that the variations stemmed from the fact that in India soybeans and rapeseed were grown on individual farms, rather than on large integrated plantations. While this sometimes gave rise to differences in color and texture, he insisted that the quality was the same.

INDONESIA has lifted a ban on beef imported from Australia and New Zealand after the Indonesia’s Council of Ulemas, or MUI dropped concerns about its suitability for Muslim consumers, officials said last month. MUI issued a letter to clarify that until the new halal certification rules are put into effect on October 1, all imported beef from Australia and New Zealand that were slaughtered before and after March 25 are halal.

Seventy-six containers of Australian and New Zealand beef were cleared for import on Monday after MUI gave the green light, director general of livestock at the Agriculture Ministry Tjeppy Soedjana told AFP.

MUI said in late March that it could no longer certify Australian and New Zealand beef as halal, meaning it had been slaughtered in line with Islamic practice. "The meat came from some sources which we didn't endorse but we have since checked them and certified them to be halal," MUI chairman Ma'ruf Amin said.

Indonesia requires imported beef products to pass Islamic halal standards for food consumption. Under the halal certification rules, suppliers must print halal labels in both English and Indonesian.

The agriculture department reportedly banned beef imports from Australia and New Zealand in June 2.

The order to release the beef was issued while Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean held a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart, Mari Pangestu, in Bali to discuss trade liberalisation. The Indonesian government is reportedly concerned over a flood of beef imports from Australia and New Zealand after the two countries signed a free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last year.

The government has made provision for 12 million dollars in loan interest subsidies to help meat and dairy producers cope with the increased competition.

TANGERANG Regency Council considers a regulation draft on bird flu, currently being discussed by the administration, would have severe impact on local residents bird farm. Daka Udin, a councillor, said that the regulation draft contains articles on limitation on fowl numbers in a farm and prohibition of setting up coops near residential houses. He said the regulation would send a blow to small farmers.

“The administration needs to reconsider these articles,” he said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Tangerang Council Speaker Endang Sudjana also said that small farmers in the area have put their coops near their residence for ages.

AS bird flu cases have become a hot issue in recent years, the city administration is planning to relocate the market, which is located in the densely populated Matraman area, in an attempt to curb the spread of the disease, despite the fact no cases of bird flu have been recorded there. The smaller Barito Bird Market in South Jakarta is also set to be relocated.

The city husbandry, fishery and maritime agency has so far revealed several places, including Cibubur in East Jakarta and Ragunan in South Jakarta, as possible relocation sites, which is planned to take place by 2010. However, almost all vendors do not agree with the plan.

Hery, the deputy chairman of the Pramuka bird vendors' association, said all vendors at the market had given the association the full authority to represent them in negotiations with the agency.

"We have met the agency officials several times. However, as of today, there is no clarity about when and where they will relocate us," Hery said.

Hery, who started his business in the early 1990s, said the vendors protested the relocation as it would cause a loss of customers and an increase in transportation costs. "Almost all vendors have spent decades running businesses here and have built houses nearby. If the market is relocated, it would mean that would need to move to monitor our business," he said. "Moreover, Pramuka Market already has a nationwide reputation. Relocation means we will have to start all over again." 

Source: Poultry Indonesia