Cockfight over chicken prices

Singaporeans are upset over the export ban, but Malaysia has a bigger fight on its hands in keeping chicken prices under control.

FOOD fights between Malaysia and Singapore used to be about who made the better nasi lemak, char koay teow and even chendol. Not anymore. Now, it’s over chicken rice. And it’s not even about who does it better. It’s about whether the dish is even available.

The people on the other side of the Causeway are in a flap because Malaysia has slapped a ban on the export of live chicken to the republic, and now many top hawkers are closing shop.

They could use frozen chicken imported from elsewhere, but that would never be as good as having freshly-slaughtered chicken.

Unhappy, the Singaporeans are already in talks with Thailand to ensure they continue to get fresh supply, with or without Malaysia.

This may not be good for our poultry business when the supply resumes.Malaysians, however, do not need Singaporeans to engage in food fights. We can do it ourselves. It was there for all to see at a Hari Raya do at Dataran Merdeka a week ago.

It was a total mess as those who gathered there almost fell over each other to get their hands on the fried chicken being handed out.

It was like chicken was going out of fashion. In a sense, it is.

The farmers, the wholesalers, the retailers – the whole chain is in trouble, no thanks to climate change and the war in Ukraine.

Corn and soy, the staple diet of broiler chicken – birds that are bred to be eaten – are becoming harder to obtain.

The United States, Brazil and Ukraine are the three major countries that export corn and soy, and with Ukraine out of the equation, the other two are struggling to fill the void.

And we all know what they say about supply and demand. Chicken feed is really no chicken feed any longer. It’s costing an arm and a leg, and a wing or two as well these days.

Only this week, the price of chicken feed rose by RM3 a bag, says a neighbour who is in the poultry industry.

Surprisingly, the chicken problems also boil down to the perennial foreign worker shortage.

Farms complain that they have no workers to care for the chicks. The chicks have to be carefully bred for the first 15 days before they are moved out of the brooder area.

The brooder area then has to be cleaned and prepared all over again before a fresh set of newly-hatched chicks are brought in.

Due to lack of workers, this process, which used to be done every 15 days or so, is being delayed, taking far longer, says the neighbour.

Worse, farms that may work with 100,000 chicks per cycle are also reducing the number by a quarter due to manpower needs.

Transport firms and processing centres, where the birds are slaughtered, cleaned and sent out, are also complaining of worker shortages.

With the process being delayed all along the production line, it is no wonder that there is a shortage of chicken, he says.

Rules on the slaughtering process are not helping either. Since 2006, the policy has been to ban slaughtering at wet markets.

Local councils have ordered that slaughtering be done only at selected centres.

This means higher costs, a greater need for refrigeration and transport from these centres to the wet markets.

All these costs, which escalate from the RM6.50 a kilo or so at the farm, are passed on to customers. The RM8.90 ceiling price just does not seem feasible.

Now that the government subsidy has been withdrawn from the breeders, it’s going to hurt more.

And we have no idea if the re-directed RM720mil subsidy will actually reach the targeted poor.

Only last year, there was an outcry in Penang when the state decided that all slaughtering had to be done at six approved slaughterhouses on the mainland while all sellers had to get their supply from a centralised storage and distribution point on the island.

They also had to have chillers at their stalls in the wet market, leading to some just giving up on the business.

“Slaughtering at the market can help us bring down costs by about 50 sen a kilo or a ringgit for every bird,” says the seller.

Fomca, meanwhile, has a different idea on bringing down costs. It says we should start a boycott and just stop eating chicken for a month or so. It’s not likely to help, but I like that idea.

After all, chickens are fascinating animals. The birds, which sleep with one eye open, actually have dreams, we are told.

Dreams? I would think they are nightmares. I mean, if you knew you were being fattened to be killed and eaten after just nine weeks of your four-year lifespan, you would not be having sweet dreams, would you?

Chickens are intelligent. They can “talk”, and even recognise 100 different faces.

They are actually descended from the dinosaurs and their closest relatives are, would you believe it, the T-Rex.

Think about it! They have been around since the dinosaurs, and we are eating them into extinction.

So what should people eat instead? The prices of fish, mutton and beef have all gone up too.

Going vegetarian may sound like a good – and even healthy – idea. Until you take a gander at the price of vegetables these days.

I think I will stick to chicken.

Maybe, we just need to listen to the PAS politicians and Perak Mentri Besar and start rearing chickens in our houses and planting vegetables even in condominiums.

Or just convert those tennis and badminton courts in condominiums into vegetable plots and chicken coops.

Who needs the courts, anyway? It’s not like we are going to win the Thomas Cup anytime soon.