Yesterday, the Cabinet agreed to provide the subsidy to poultry farmers by taking into account the farm-level price of live chicken at RM5.90 per kg and the retail price of standard chicken at RM8.90 per kg.

Agriculture and food industries minister Ronald Kiandee said in a statement the Cabinet also agreed to provide a subsidy of 5 sen per egg from all grades. “The subsidy period is from Feb 5 to June 4, which is during the implementation of the Keluarga Malaysia Maximum Price Control Scheme,” he said.

According to Ronald, the subsidies were to ease the burden of farmers following the increase in costs, especially for feed, which covers 70% of production costs apart from logistics, labour, utilities and medicine.

Ngeh, of DAP, said the subsidy given could only help the farmers to bear their breeding costs.

“They would still incur losses if the land cost, loan interests from financial institutions, and the capital cost of building chicken coops are taken into account,” he said in a statement.

“I call on the government to slightly increase the subsidy rate so that these hardworking poultry farmers can gain a little income or profit from their efforts. Every worker is entitled to a small amount of income or profit from their tireless efforts.”