THE IMPACT OF IMPORTED BEEF BOXED TO FEEDLOT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA
Rochadi Tawaf, H.A.W. Lengkey
Abstract
In Indonesia, total population of beef cattle comprises around 11.8 millions heads. Generally, the cattle are kept by small holder business feedlot and only few of them are raised by feedlot companies. The main problems are the breed quality, the feedlot are small size and feed quality (roughage and concentrate). Production performances indicated that average daily gain reached 0.5-0.9 kg/day/head in small holder farms and 1.2-1.5 kg/day/head in feedlot companies. During several years, Indonesian beef farmers were interested to run crossbreeding (Simmental and Limousine cross with local cattle) and crossing with Ongole Cross (local breed), in order to achieve better performance. According the Meat and Livestock Australia report (2009), live cattle and carcass export to Indonesia grew up rapidly during the last four years. In 2007-08 the live cattle export to Indonesia counted 547,000 heads, while in 2006-07 was of 452,000 heads; carcass export reached 46,100 tones in 2007-08 increasing thus twice from 28,000 tones, in 2006-07. Whole value of live cattle traded export to Indonesia reached around US $ 341 million during 2007-08, compared to last year - only US $303 million. For carcass trading, the export value increased from US $ 73 millions in 2006-07, to US $ 99 millions. This was the third market level after USA and Japan markets, and was developed very rapidly. It is predicted to increase around 12% in 2009, and to keep increasing in the next few years. Actually, there is disparity of beef price in Indonesia between local and imported beef. Thus, the retail price for Australian beef is only Rp. 42.500/kg (around US $ 4.00), compared to local beef, around Rp. 55,000/kg or US $ 5.00. It will be an impact to Australian beef cattle farmers in the future, mostly beneficial for the Northern Territory and Queensland, because they could sold the heavy cattle directly to slaughter house. On the other side, this disparity has impact to short term on the beef price in Indonesia and will have negative impact on the small scale farmers and feedlot companies, because the production costs will not covered by the beef market price. Therefore, if beef imports from Australia will be continued over long term, the feedlot business companies in Indonesia will be collapsed. In anticipation for long term, Australia should export the feeder cattle (steer or heifer) to Indonesia at competitive prices. The price disparity between Australian imported boxed beef and Indonesian beef has distorted the local beef market prices and influenced the feedlot industries in Indonesia, decreasing also the price of the live cattle imported from Australia. This condition is not conducive to the cattle farmers in North area in Australia and feedlot business in Indonesia.
