KUCHING, Nov 15: Sarawak has exported its first shipment of 350 live locally bred pigs to Singapore.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, who witnessed the shipment departing at Sim Kheng Hong Pending Port today, is hopeful to achieve the target of 5,000 pigs for export per day.
“I was told there was a potential of about 5,000 pigs per day and at the moment, we are only supplying about 100 per day, so there is a very big gap and it is a very big potential,” he said.
The live pigs are from Green Breeder Sdn Bhd, who is operating from the Pig Farming Area (PFA) at Pasir Puteh, Simunjan.
Sarawak is pushing ahead to move all 27 pig farms in Kuching, Kota Samarahan and Serian divisions to the PFA by December 2018 under the first phase of the project to integrate pig farming in one area.
The state-of-the-art facility would house 250,000 standing pigs population (SPP) once the first phase of the project is fully implemented.
As of today, there are 27 lots available for farmers at PFA, which have been offered to the 27 respective farmers and 22 of them have indicated a positive intention to move their farms here.
Most of them have paid their deposit ranging from RM30,000 to RM900,000.
Uggah, who is also the Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development said one of the target markets for PFA’s pork production would be Singapore, as PFA had been exporting its products to Singapore since last year.
He added that up until August this year, PFA had exported a total of 668 tonnes of meat to the island republic and that it aimed to export 1,000 tonnes by yearend.
Uggah noted that the development of the PFA is a long term strategy under the National Agriculture Policy to restructure the livestock breeding industry and transform, modernise and centralise the pig rearing industry.
“We can also control pig waste pollution through a modern centralised waste treatment system and implement proper animal disease control and public health protection.”
As of now, only 100ha of the 804ha have been utilised in the PFA with one anchor farm which started its production in 2010 with 4,974 SPP and this number has increased to 22,401 in 2015; today there are 30,000 SPP.
Uggah disclosed that the government had spent a total of RM212.98 million; RM143.2 million from the state government and RM69.78 million from the federal government to develop the Phase One project, which commenced in 2005. — DayakDaily
