Life is Healthy

An Indonesian worker sorts chickens at a chicken market in Jakarta. (EPA Photo/Bagus Indahono)

The Jakarta city administration said it would consider ways to ease the impact of the relocation of poultry slaughterhouses, as about a thousand chicken traders again protested against the plan on Tuesday.

Mara Oloan Siregar, assistant to the city secretary for economic and administrative affairs, said that the administration would hold discussions with chicken traders to find ways to prevent them from suffering losses as a result of the move.

“We will improve the relocation procedure and the agency will map [the location of] chicken traders and shelters so they can be arranged properly,” he said after meeting with chicken traders’ representatives at City Hall.

As the meeting was going on inside, about a thousand protesters rallied outside the building and at the adjacent City Council building to demand the city drop its relocation plan. The protesters threw dead chickens into the front yard of the City Council building to symbolize their objection to the plan to relocate 1,950 slaughterhouses and 210 shelters to just five locations in the capital.

The relocation, set to begin next month, is based on a 2007 bylaw on poultry control, husbandry and distribution, which states that poultry brought to markets in Jakarta must already be cut, cleaned and frozen to help prevent the spread of bird flu.

The traders have held frequent protests in recent weeks.

Edy Setiarto, head of Jakarta’s Agriculture and Fisheries Agency, said that even though the relocation would be carried out, there would be no raids on slaughterhouses that remained open on April 24 — the deadline for traders to sign up for the relocation.

“We will move the traders gradually and will also improve publicity relating to the bylaw and the relocation plan,” he said.

The Jakarta Poultry Traders Association (HPUJ) has claimed that 64,000 chicken traders employing 75,000 people may be forced to close down as a result of the move, because they would not be able to afford the costs of freezing, packing and distributing chicken from the new locations.

One of the protesters, Budi Prasetyo, 44, a chicken vendor in Rawa Badak market in North Jakarta, said he was worried the bylaw would add to his transport costs and force him to sell chickens that were no longer fresh.

“I slaughter chickens at my house. It takes less than 15 minutes to get to the market so my chickens are sold fresh,” he told the Jakarta Globe.

HPUJ head Siti Maryam told the city administration that if the traders’ demands were not met, they would stop selling in the market for several days.

But Edy said a strike would only affect consumers and the smaller traders. “The small traders are not the only ones selling chicken. If they strike, big traders could take advantage,” he said.

Oloan reiterated at the meeting that the bylaw was meant to make poultry trading more orderly and hygienic, in order to prevent the spread of bird flu.

As of March 2010, Indonesia still had the highest number of bird flu cases worldwide at 163 confirmed cases and 135 deaths. Dien Emawati, head of Jakarta’s Health Agency, said Jakarta had the highest number of bird flu fatalities at 37.