A ‘Swift Boom’ for Malaysia? From Boom to Bust in the Malaysian Swiftlet Farming Industry
Speaker：Dr. Creighton Connolly (Postdoctoral Fellow, Asia Research Institute, NUS)
Date and Time：2.30pm-4.30pm, 5 July 2017 (Wed)
Venue：ICS Seminar Room, 4th Floor, Block B, IPS Building, University of Malaya
In 5th July 2017, MCRC ushered the visiting of Dr. Creighton Connolly. Dr. Connolly has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore since June, 2016. His today’s topic was actually related to his dissertation, A Landscape Political Ecology of ‘Swiftlet Farming’ in Malaysian Cities considers these themes through an ethnographic analysis of the contested emergence of swiftlet farms (structures for the harvesting of edible birds’ nests) in Malaysian cities such as George Town, Penang and Malacca, and the socio-ecological transformations involved.
The presentation on ‘swiftlet farming’ had based on ethnographic research conducted in Malaysia in 2013 and 2014, and drawn on both qualitative interviews with swiftlet farmers and industry consultants, as well as discursive analysis of newspaper articles, industry reports, and other academic sources. First of all, Dr. Creighton briefly touched on the history of ‘bird nest’, where the price is swinging, and the demanding of ‘bird nest’ in China increased. In his opinion, the demand from China was the main and one of reason for the ‘Swift Boom’ in Malaysia. Then, he explained the current economic conditions of ‘swiftlet farming’ in Malaysia, and how the jobs are done. In his explanations, the owners need to build a sound system to attract the bird, while the building structure is important with no windows. There are also a lot of cautions and risks that the owner need to take care of.
The angle of view was then concentrated on the demanding of China on ‘bird nest’. In Dr. Creighton research, it was Zheng He, the mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty, who brought ‘bird nest’ from Sumatera to China. Till then, China was the largest consumer in the world. The period of 1980an-1990an is the most rapid growth of ‘swiftlet’ economy. There was a proliferation of swiftlet faims in Peninsular Malaysia, that mostly origin from East Java and spread to Peninsular Malaysia by 1990s. This resulted to the repeal of Rent Control Act. During that time, swiftlet farming original concentrated in Manjung Region, and 80% of it were in urban areas.
Besides, Dr. Creighton had examined the various political-economic factors that led to the rapid growth and popularity of the industry in the country in the mid-late1990s, as well as its rapid decline in the earlier part of this decade. There were various social factors that led to its increasing popularity amongst Chinese Malaysians, as well as government attempts to promote the industry both as a vehicle of economic growth and a way of boosting employment amongst rural bumiputera. This is due to the government strategy by using housing bird to rebuilding economy during 1997 financial crisis. In their opinion, swiftlet farming can actually benefit the city (as one of the main drivers of property prices since 1997/1998), town (Benefit to town councils through taxing and licensing), and citizen (as a business opportunity). Then, there were the role of rumours and discourse that lead to the boost of swiftlet farming too. One of it is “popular accounts of lucrative returns”, saying that it is a good mine, the best opportunity in Malaysia, quite easy to be done because nature will does the work for you. These rumours brought to the increasing of workers, until everyone was doing it.
However, while the industry can be quite lucrative for those who are successful, it also has a considerable failure rate, making it a very risky form of investment. Dr. Creighton outlined the reasons for this high failure rate, and also examined various types of R&D programs that were launched to reduce the risk for investing in the industry. According to the statistics, the failure rate in swiftlet farming was 70% and 92% for small-scale swiftlet farmers, due to lack of farmer knowledge and luck. In his analysis, the most drastic hit was the China Ban. Fake Malaysian ‘blood’ nests discovered by China Food Inspection Agency, resulted in embargo on Malaysian EBNs until 2013. During that period, many have quit from the industry because of hard conditions. Government and farmers do negotiated the solution, where Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking implemented. Swiftlet farmers were then required to register in Malaysia MOH and JPV. With the efforts, 11 swiftlet farmers were given a special approval to export to China in 2013, but then later reduced to only 8. Still, the heavy blow still impact on the swiftlet farming in Malaysia.
In his conclusion, Dr. Creighton argued on the lack of regulation of the industry, and the informal manner in which it operated led to its eventual collapse in 2013, which was caused by an embargo placed on Malaysian bird nests by China - the dominant market. He then ended his presentation that in present stage, swiftlet farming still seems to be active in Malaysia, and he will start working on the new research on it.
Prepared by Tan Sok Jin
Last updated: 10 August 2017
