Jeffrey Ng, adviser to the Malaysian livestock federation, said those pointing fingers at chicken suppliers for the price increase should try to run the business themselves.
“We are just common people running a business, not a charity,” he said. “We still have to feed our workers and families. Is that what a bloodsucker is?”
Last Tuesday, Anwar urged the government to go after “unscrupulous chicken suppliers” instead of chicken sellers and wholesalers following a rise in chicken prices.
Ng denied that chicken farmers were manipulating the market.
He said suppliers had no good reason to hoard chickens since doing so would mean having to continue feeding them and thereby increasing costs.
Also, he said, hoarding chickens would result in bigger bird sizes, and chickens exceeding the market size would draw enquiries from the domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry.
He said it was the demand surge from the backlog of prohibitions during the Covid-19 lockdown that had caused the market to be in disarray.
Johor Poultry Breeders Association secretary Lau Ka Leng said Anwar’s statement was unwarranted as chicken farmers had agreed to reduce profits to help consumers get through this tough time.
“We can earn less but we cannot be running at a loss, but that’s what’s happening to some of us farmers and breeders,” he said.
“The government is so concerned that people are unable to afford chicken that they overlook the fact that people might end up with no chicken to buy at all.”
Lau said the country might end up losing its supply of chickens if farmers were to decide that chicken farming was no longer profitable.
He also said subsidies provided to farmers were being split between them and integrators.
Integrators are companies that contract farms to produce chickens for them. Lau claimed that these firms tended to take the larger share of the subsidies.
“The integrators believe that since the cost per chicken has been calculated and included in the contract, we don’t need the subsidies,” he said. “The truth is that most of the contracts fail to consider risks such as diseases.”