Indonesia Govt Controls Imports of Cow Meat

Jakarta, Indonesia (News Today) - The Indonesian government is controlling imports of cow meat while at the same time increasing domestic production to realize self-sufficiency in the meat supply by 2014.

"Now the domestic production is improving. Imports from January to June reached 56,000 tons and in the future they will be controlled further to assure realization of self-sufficiency," vice minister of agriculture Bayu Krisnamurthi said here on Wednesday.

The government, he said, would only allow cow meat imports for restaurants that need meat with certain specifications that cannot as yet be able to be met domestically.

"Their need is very small compared to total cow meat demand," he said after attending a coordination meeting on stabilization of basic necessary prices at the ministry of trade.

He said the needs of restaurants only reached 100 to 150 tons a month or 1,200 to 1,800 tons a year which is far smaller than the households’ and industries’ needs.
According to him, the needs of households reached 340,000 tons a year while industries 65,000 tons a year.

Besides controlling imports, he said, the government would also increase the capacity of domestic cow meat production so that it could meet the national needs in 2014. He stated the agriculture ministry also would increase cow population in the country by 11.23 percent to 14.23 millions in 2014.

In 2007 the domestic cow meat production totalled 210,800 tons up to 250,800 tons in 2009 while national cow meat consumption totalled 325,900 tons in 2009 up from 314,000 tons in 2007.

To meet cow meat consumption in 2007 the government imported feeder stocks reaching 60,800 tons and cow meat totalling 64,000 tons. In 2009 imports of feeder stocks rose to 72,800 tons and cow meat 70,000 tons.

Bayu said until July 2010 the price of cow meat remained relatively stable with a change of only around 0.02 percent. The government keeps monitoring the development of the cow meat price and production to assure supply will not be disrupted especially ahead of the Islamic fasting month and post-fasting holiday. He said the government would also facilitate links between producing and consuming regions.

"In Central Java there is a hike in cow meat supply. The region may be linked t

Source : kompas

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