Ewon wants more cooperatives to engage in chicken farming activities

12 January, 2023

By Wartawan Nabalu News

KUALA LUMPUR: Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative Minister Datuk Ewon Benedick hopes that more cooperatives in Malaysia will venture into chicken farming activities to further increase the chicken production capacity in the country.

He said a total of 21 cooperatives registered under the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (SKM) are involved in chicken farming activities with a total income of RM57.46 million per year.

"For the existing cooperatives involved in this field, I hope they can take full advantage of the assistance provided by the ministry through SKM to further expand their business.

"Various assistance is provided to empower cooperatives in chicken farming activities, including funding of up to RM3 million through the Agrofood Fund and Development Assistance of up to RM300,000 to strengthen the infrastructure of chicken farming activities.

"This is one of the initiatives provided by SKM for the empowerment of cooperatives in this sector," he said after the KUSKOP Ministerial Liaison Session with Poultry Cooperatives in conjunction with SKM's official visit and briefing, at Menara SKM, here, today.

Also present were the Deputy Minister of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Saraswathy Kandasami, the ministry's Secretary-General Dato' Sri Suriani Ahmad and the ministry's Deputy Secretary-General (Development) Datuk Zamri Salleh.

The briefing was delivered by SKM's Executive Chairman Rusli Jaafar.

Ewon was also briefed on the SKM (Amendment) Bill 2022 and the Implementation of the People's Cooperative 2.0 Malaysia Berhad (BR2.0).

Meanwhile, the new Deputy Executive Chairman of SKM, Datuk Umar Sarim Saidin, when delivering a briefing on Poultry Cooperatives, said that the 21 cooperatives are in Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor, Federal Territories, Melaka, Johor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan.

"Most cooperatives involved in chicken farming are contract farming with parties integrator (majority with Ayamas)," he said.

Umar Sarim said, in terms of chicken production capacity by cooperatives, a total of 5.2 million chickens were produced per year compared to 2.5 million chickens a day for domestic needs.

He also said that among the issues and challenges faced by cooperatives in this enterprise are the price increase in seeds and inputs, the manipulation of integrators in contracts and transactions as well as the difficulty in obtaining quality seeds (DOC) and the impact of high death and disability.