BVB sows breed future bacon

Photo by: Uy Nousereimony
Swine sleep at a Kampong Speu pig farm last May.

via CAAI

Wednesday, 22 September 2010 15:00 Chun Sophal

BVB Investment Company will import 500 sows from Thailand in coming weeks, the first step of its plan to sell 150 pigs per day by next June.

The female pigs will breed young piglets to be raised for meat on a US$19 million farm in Santuk district, Kampong Thom province, some 165 kilometres north of Phnom Penh, BVB President Duong Vibol said yesterday.

“We will keep importing more female pigs in the coming months to accomplish our aims,” he said.

Plans call for 2,500 total sow imports by the end of the year, with another 3,500 brought in during 2011.

BVB announced in May that it would build the pig farm. The farm is intended to eventually include a slaughterhouse and a meat processing plant.

Duong Vibol said he planned to meet growing demand for pork. “We will expand market supply more and more in the future until we reach a maximum reduction of pig imports,” he said.

Last month, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a temporary ban on all import of pigs from Vietnam and Thailand in a bid to prevent the spread of blue ear disease and pig diarrhoea in Cambodia.

But Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Department of Animal Health and Production director Kao Phal said that BVB Investment received cooperation from the Department to ensure the health of its animals.

“For the time being, the main measure we have to take is to crack down on the smuggling of pigs or pig meat into the country because it may lead to the spread of disease, badly affecting our people,” he said.