No more poultry farms due to flies

There will be no opening of new poultry farms in Negri Sembilan, and existing chicken breeders must operate closed farming systems by 31 December if they wanted to remain in the business.

Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan has said that these drastic measures were being taken because the state had been having a massive problem with flies. “The people cannot be made to suffer at the expense of others who make big profits out of poultry farming,” he said, adding that the state had more than enough poultry farms and there was no need for more. 

He also made it clear that state authorities would not entertain requests from poultry farmers to extend the deadline. “The three year deadline ended last December. We are now giving them until end of this year to do so. We cannot always bend the rules for them as people have been suffering as a result of the open farming,” he said.

Mohamad also told corporations that buy chicks from poultry farmers to ensure that the suppliers practised the closed farming method. “Eight out of every 10 poultry farmers have contracts with these large corporations who provide them with chicks and chicken feed. I hope they will take note of this,” he said.

Mohamad said attempts by the state government to centralise poultry farming had not received positive feedback from farmers, adding that the government was prepared to allocate between 60ha and 100ha of land for the purpose.