PADAWAN: Sarawak has great potential to produce livestock and its products for export, said the Assistant Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development Minister Datuk Roland Sagah Wee Inn.
He said this was due to Sarawak’s advantage in the industry in terms of livestock disease status.
“Sarawak is free from livestock diseases of economic importance such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), African Swine Fever (ASF), and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).
“This allows us to export livestock or livestock products to overseas without restrictions,” he said when officiating the Livestock Rearing Project Input handing-over ceremony here on yesterday.
In this regard, he noted that livestock farmers in the state needed to increase production of agro-food, which includes livestock and livestock products, in order to achieve Sarawak’s target of becoming a net food exporter by 2030.
He added that the state had recorded a sum of more than RM165 million in exporting a number of livestock commodities and products for the year 2019.
“This shows that there is good potential in the field of livestock breeding due to the large domestic and international markets,” he said.
On the sector of ruminant livestock, he said the state had to import 90 percent of the total beef and buffalo meat consumed in the state from Australia and India as well as another 85 percent of mutton and lamb meat from Australia.
“In the year 2019, we have imported nearly eight million tonnes of meat from overseas. This shows that the local market for ruminant livestock is big.
“Thus, ruminant livestock breeding whether small or industrial has the potential due to the large local market,” said Datuk Roland.
