Feed mill to take bite out of growing import demand
Chip Mong Group is the latest conglomerate to invest into local production of animal feed, announcing this week that it will sink $60 million into building a large-scale feed mill and industrial piggery, a move that agricultural experts welcomed but said would still not be able to curtail the Kingdom’s dependence on imported feed. Sen Sovann, director general of the Ministry of Agriculture’s animal production and health department, said Cambodia imported over half of its animal feed last year at a cost of $135 million. It spent another $100 million to import some 400,000 pigs from neighbouring countries to meet local demand for pork meat. “We are still overly reliant on imports of both meat and feed,” he said on March 14. “Even though we have new feed mill factories coming soon, they will not be able to the fill the gap created by the demand from the local market, which is increasing 10 percent annually.”
