The Ministry of Commerce has thrown its weight behind efforts to promote the Kingdom’s domestic animal feed industry, signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with six factories to facilitate the purchase of ingredients.

The “Cooperative Agreement to Promote the Procurement of Red Corn, Cassava and Raw Materials” MoU was signed on March 19 at the ministry headquarters, in the presence of finance minister Cham Nimul.

“Through this agreement, the ministry will coordinate the purchase of 189,000 tonnes of maize, 81,600 tonnes of cassava, 51,130 tonnes of broken rice and 57,730 tonnes of rice husks with the six private companies,” explained a ministry statement.

The six companies are M'S PIG ACMC (Cambodia), BETAGRO (Cambodia) Company Limited, Agri-Master Co., Ltd., De Heus TMH Co., Ltd., Ant Feed Co., Ltd. and CJ CheilJedang Feed (Cambodia) Co., Ltd.

Ly Lavil, a representative of M'S PIG, told Oknha News that, on average, the company requires about 100,000 tonnes of various raw materials each year.

He noted that due to limited local production capacity, Cambodia imports large quantities of animal feed each year.

“If the livestock industry continues to grow, I believe that domestic animal feed factories will expand production and procure more raw materials. This will reduce the need to import animal feed from abroad,” he said.

M'S PIG operates in Preah Sihanouk’s Prey Nup district, with a factory that covers 24 hectares.

The current production capacity ranges from 15,000 to 16,000 tonnes per month, but in the future, the company plans to expand monthly production to 30,000 tonnes.

Srun Pov, president of the Cambodia Livestock Raisers Association, recently told The Post that livestock farming in Cambodia faces many challenges, especially high feed prices.

Due to the limited production capacity of local feed factories, Cambodia imports large quantities of animal feed from abroad each year.

He believed if domestic factories could meet local demand, it would help farmers achieve better profits.