TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Brazilian chicken meat products will likely start to flood the Indonesian market after Indonesia lost the lawsuit filed by Brazil at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on poultry products trade barriers. It effectively forces Indonesia to open its imports from the Latin American country.

According to IPB University’s animal husbandry faculty lecturer Rudi Afnan, as written in a statement released in the university’s website ipb.ac.id, the chicken meat imports from Brazil may likely threaten local chicken farmers. Rudi argued it is best for Indonesia to halt poultry product imports.

“This is closely related to the issue of policy in international trade where we are obliged to accept chicken imports from Brazil. Meanwhile, we have self-supported our need for broiler meat since 2008 and have even succeeded in exporting,” the lecturer wrote.

Due to its production capacity, he said, Brazil plans to export poultry products to Indonesia with a relatively low price of Rp14,000/kilograms. Rudi believes that it will make it difficult for Indonesian poultry farmers to compete.

He said one of the solutions is through production efficiency, which can be a tall order as local whole chicken products sold around Rp30,000-40,000 per kilogram while local broiler chicken is sold around Rp14,000 per kilogram. Another solution is for the government to provide subsidies to Indonesian chicken farmers.

GERIN RIO PRANATA