KUCHING, March 10: Shrimp farming has great potential as shown by the RM61 million worth of shrimps exported by a private company here.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah revealed Sea Horse Corporation Sdn Bhd (Sea Horse) has been producing shrimp using smart farming technology through the application of IoT (internet of things).
Last year, the company had exported RM61 million worth of shrimp to countries such as Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Singapore.
“This is very promising. The government will try to help it find more land for its expansion programme,” Uggah disclosed after a visit to the company’s processing factory at Bintawa here today.
Uggah who is the Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development, also revealed Sea Horse had last year signed a MoU with his ministry to be an anchor company for marine products.
“It is now adopting a number of small-time farmers to supply them the feed and fries and later will buy from them. It is our hope it can develop more smallholders,” said Uggah.
Uggah was also happy to note that Sea Horse had obtained the necessary food safety standards and certifications such as the Good Agricultural practices, MeSTI (Makanan Selamat Tanggungjawab Industri), Good Manufacturing Practice, HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), Halal Certification and BRCGS (British Retail Consortium Global Standards) for its two processing plants.
Meanwhile, according to Sea Horse executive director Lee Choon Kheng, the company had a turnover of RM127 million last year.
He revealed Australia was its biggest buyer at RM15.3 million, followed by China at RM12.7 million.
The company also sells processed jellyfish, exporting RM36.4 million worth of the product last year.
Lee added Sea Horse now has seven farms with 177 ponds.
“We practise smart farming here such as automatic feeding control systems instead of being done manually where high protein shrimp feeds are distributed automatically.
“There is sufficient fallowing too to allow recuperation of the eco system,” Lee revealed.
