Duong Vibol’s company puts $19 million into providing hundreds of thousands of pigs and cattle for market, to appease a healthy national appetite for meat

BVB Investment Company will put US$19 million towards establishing a farming complex to produce hundreds of thousand of pigs and cattle for sale on local and international markets.

Duong Vibol, president of BVB, told the Post on Sunday that the company is preparing to build a farm on 11 hectares of land in Kampong Thma commune, Santuk district, Kampong Thom province.

It is hoped the complex will be able to raise tens of thousands of pigs and cattle for slaughter each year.

Currently, Cambodia imports about 2,000 pigs per day to supply to domestic markets because local farmers cannot meet market demand.

“We hope that the farmhouse will be able to start supplying meat to markets from mid-2011,” Duong Vibol said Sunday.

According to BVB’s plans, around 2,500 pure-bred sows will be imported from Thailand in early June as a first step.

Another 3,500 female pigs will be added next year, before cattle are raised and animal-slaughtering houses and meat-processing factories built.

The company also wants to raise goats and sheep for meat in the future, and aims to build an animal feed factory on site.

Mong Reththy, the agricultural tycoon, who runs a huge farming business in Cheung Kor commune, Prey Nub district, Preah Sihanouk province, said Sunday that he welcomed the project.

He said that the BVB scheme would not compete with his company and would be a valuable way to increase the supply of meat in the Kingdom, where demand outstrips supply.

“We want to see such large-scale investments build at least 10 farmhouses or perhaps more so that local demand of meat can be responded to,” Mong Reththy said.

According to reports from the Department of Animal Health and Production, about 2 million pigs were slaughtered to provide meat for sale in Cambodia in 2009.

Duong Vibol said that from June next year, his company would supply about 150 pigs per day in order to meet the country’s demand for meat.

“We will keep enlarging the amount of pigs we supply to markets year by year in order to help reduce imports of pigs from other countries to a minimum amount,” Duong Vibol said.

In 2008, Mong Reththy Group, invested $5 million to import 618 purebred Yorkshire pigs from Britain to be bred and sold as piglets to local farmers to prevent imports.

On May 4, the provincial governor of Svay Rieng province banned pig imports from Vietnam over fears of diseases such as foot-and-mouth and porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome.

According to officials, the ban was imposed in part to prevent the alleged dumping of ailing Vietnamese pigs on markets at cheap prices.

Kao Phal, director of the Department of Animal Health and Production, was not available for comment Sunday.