KAJANG: Shortage of eggs will likely take 18 months to ease, says Hoh Peng Keong, deputy secretary of Selangor Livestock Farmers’ Association.

Hoh, who is also the deputy head of broiler division, said if farms are unable to buy chicks, the shortage of eggs may take two years to recover.

A chicken starts laying eggs after four to five months of rearing.

Eggs are hard to find in the market and the shortage is expected to last for the next two months, he said, adding that a longer period is required to resume normalcy.

Hoh told Sin Chew Daily the number of farms in the country has declined from more than 1,000 in earlier years to 300 and now only about 170 farms still operating.

“Farms used to produce 33 million eggs a day, of which three million were exported to Singapore before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government is now controlling the prices of eggs as production has declined by 30% to 40%.

“This has become a vicious cycle. We hope the government will review the policy to let market forces decide the price of eggs. Egg prices will reduce if more eggs are produced.

Hoh also hoped the new government would look into the issues faced by poultry farmers and adopt a win-win solution so that consumers get to buy eggs at reasonable prices.

On October 10, Chairman of the Special Task Force on Jihad against Inflation Tan Sri Annuar Musa announced that the cabinet had decided to maintain the ceiling prices of type A, B and C eggs even though the subsidy was increased from three to eight sen.

“Now that the prime minister announced the dissolution of parliament shortly after that, how about the subsidy? The situation is not clear. Farms are incurring losses and it’s hard for them to sustain their operations,” he said.