As part of USSEC’s commitment to stay engaged with Indonesia poultry industry stakeholders during the COVID-19 outbreak, a virtual technical seminar was held for the Indonesian poultry industry on May 4.
The virtual event, specifically targeted at self-mixing layer farmers located in Blitar and Kediri in Indonesia’s East Java province, was conducted over Zoom and attended by 24 participants including self-mixing layer farmers, feed ingredient importers, and Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Jakarta.
Dr. Budi Tangenjaja, USSEC Technical Consultant, conducted the seminar, delivering these key points:
- vertical integration is an important aspect in the layer business as it allows the layer farms to better manage their feed costs and improve profitability
- the importance of considering nutrition value, and not focusing solely on price, in selecting feed ingredients for the layers
- shadow price simulation – using a feed formulation software in layer rations – to compare feeding costs when soybean meals of different origins are incorporated
- simulation demonstrated that inclusion of U.S. soybean meal in feed formulation can help to optimize feeding costs despite its higher price relative to other origins
Chandra Arifin, Indonesia Sales Representative from Perdue Agribusiness, was in attendance and commented on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the commercial sector and assured participants that the flow of U.S. soybeans from farms to ports has not been disrupted and that the U.S. soy supply chain remains in good shape. Two Indonesian importers were reported to have bought containerized U.S. soybean meal to Surabaya and Medan recently.
Ms. Meylinah, Ag Specialist of FAS Jakarta, also shared her recent field survey, and was optimistic that we may see an increased full fat soybean meal usage this year as a result of higher domestic corn prices driven by lower domestic corn production.
Since the webinar, several farmers have followed up with technical consultation on the use of ingredients during this difficult time as the low egg prices impacts their profitability and ability to replace their older layer stock.
USSEC Country Director – Indonesia Ibnu Wiyono is encouraged by the response to the webinar and remarked that follow up actions will include introducing farmers who are interested in purchasing U.S. soybean meal to U.S. exporters.
