Govt To Import 200 Thousand Heads Of Cattle In Q4

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - The government has issued a quota to import 200 thousand heads of feedlot cows in the fourth quarter of 2015, a senior official has said.

This import quota is nearly four times more than the 50 thousand heads of cattle imported in the third quarter.

"The plan to import 200 thousand cows in the fourth quarter was prepared long back," Internal Trade Director General of the Ministry of Trade, Srie Agustina, said here on Monday.

Agustina said the implementation of the license to import feedlot cows is on-going. These cows will be used to meet people's needs until February 2016.

She said basically, there has been no drastic increase in the number of feedlot cows being imported although the quota for the fourth quarter of this year seemed significantly high.

When compared to 2014, the total number of cattle imported this year was roughly the same.

"The number of cattle to be imported has not been enhanced too much. Earlier, the quota was released in stages. Now, the entire quota was being released in one go as per the prepared annual plan.  Therefore, the number of cows to be imported will remain the same," she said.

Last week, the government said from next year, it will no longer issue permits for a quarterly quota but will declare the quota for the entire year, and allocate it to respective feedlot companies.

"In principle, the planning should be accurate so that there is enough supply of beef stock to meet the people's needs," the director general said.

In the third quarter (July-September 2015), the government issued a license to import 50 thousand heads of cows, far less than 250 thousand heads imported in the second quarter.

In the meantime, in the first quarter, a total of 100 thousand cows were imported. So, in 2015, a total of 600 thousand cows would have been imported, down from 700 thousand in 2014.

The Ministry of Agriculture had earlier revealed that 298,861 heads of feedlot cows had been imported by the end of the second quarter.

The Director General for Animal Husbandry and Animal Health of the Ministry of Agriculture, Muladno Bashar, said earlier this month that of these, 97,618 were imported in the first quarter (January-March 2015) and 201,243 in the second quarter (April - June 2015).

He said the target was to import 567,624 heads of feedlot cows in the second semester, and it was achieved to the extent of 75.2 percent.

Bashar said that importers were issued permits to import 50,000 cows in the third quarter (July -September 2015).

However, imported cows were not intended to be used as sacrificial animals which should meet certain health, age and gender criteria. (WDY)