This year's haze crisis has added to the heat woes squeezing livestock farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia as they struggle to keep their animals cool, fed and productive. The pressure lands on small farmers first. They’re the ones paying more to ventilate sheds, absorbing the costs of smoke, heat, water shortages, feed and disease while the people and systems above them keep the machinery of production running on their backs.
Who Pays for the Air
Small farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia are spending more to ventilate their sheds as rising heat and haze-related smoke batter animal health and productivity. Farmers and industry groups say the strain is severe, but the damage doesn’t stop at the animals. It hits finances too. When the air turns hostile, the costs don’t stay abstract. They get shoved downward.
In Selama, Perak, poultry keeper Zaiful Zakaria, 42, had already started installing ventilation fans at his open-sided chicken sheds before the haze hit Malaysia in August. The fans were meant to draw out heat building up inside the sheds and protect the well-being of his mainly ornamental and heritage-breed chickens. Later, Zaiful also began installing a water-misting system. That’s the reality on the ground: not policy speeches, not neat official answers, just a farmer trying to keep living creatures from cooking in place.
The Strain Below, the Uncertainty Above
It’s difficult to separate the effects of haze-related smoke from heat, water shortages, feed and disease, according to the article. That uncertainty matters because the damage comes as a package deal. Farmers and industry groups say the cumulative strain is severely affecting animal health, productivity and their finances. The system doesn’t need one clean disaster when it can pile several together and leave small producers to sort out the wreckage.
The haze crisis has added to the heat woes, and the timing is brutal. The article says the haze hit Malaysia in August, after Zaiful had already begun installing fans. So even before the smoke thickened the air, the heat had already forced him to spend more just to keep his sheds workable. The haze didn’t create the whole problem. It made an already punishing setup worse.
What the Farmers Are Forced to Build
Zaiful’s response was practical and immediate. He installed ventilation fans. He later added a water-misting system. That’s direct action in the plainest sense: not a grand program from above, but a small farmer trying to build a livable environment with the tools available. The article doesn’t describe any institutional rescue, any meaningful buffer, or any collective solution that shields small producers from the costs.
Instead, the burden sits where it always does in these arrangements — with the people closest to the damage. Small farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia are the ones trying to keep animals cool, fed and productive while also paying more for the privilege of staying afloat. The language of “productivity” hides the human and material grind underneath it. The sheds need ventilation. The chickens need protection. The bills still arrive.
The article also notes that farmers and industry groups are worried about rising heat. That worry isn’t theoretical. It’s tied to the daily work of keeping livestock alive under worsening conditions. The cumulative strain is already severe, and the costs are being measured in animal health, output and money. No one at the top of the chain gets to pretend the smoke and heat are someone else’s problem when the losses show up in the barns.
Malaysia and Indonesia are both named in the article, and so is the shared pressure on livestock farmers across both places. The crisis crosses borders, but the burden stays local. The people with the least power are left to improvise, spend more and hope the animals make it through another day.