Food supplier to prepare for AEC
Food supplier to prepare for AEC
A major local food supplier, Sengdeuane Farm in Vientiane province, may have to spend a large sum of money on improving meat production to prepare for the integration into the Asean Economic Community (AEC) next year.
The farm's General Director Ms Sengdeuane Thedsombandith said the farm development plan includes the increase of pork production and supply from 40 tonnes to 60 tonnes per week.
In 2012, the farm could only produce and supply 10 to 15 tonnes of packaged meat to markets and an equivalent amount of live pigs.
Ms Sengdeuane also hoped to double chicken production through the addition of modern machines at the animal feed factory and by promoting maize plantations to supply to the local farmers' animal feed factories.
Other development requirements will also include building a kiln or factory to dry maize and supply to the animal feed factory, warehouse and maize drying field.
However, she has yet to reveal the cost of the development as she has to take her time on the study.
The AEC will transform Asean into a region with a free flow of goods, services, investment, skilled labour and capital.
In the AEC Blueprint, Asean member states agreed to reduce tariffs, improve frameworks for trade, better enforce compliance with standards and progressively open up the national service sectors to cross-border supply and foreign investment.
Currently, the farm has food supply centres in both Vientiane and Vientiane province, with outlets in Donnoun village in Xaythany district of Vientiane and Thoulakhom and Keo-oudom districts in Vientiane province. The farm hopes to further expand into Oudomxay, Bokeo, Luang Namtha and Borikhamxay provinces in the near future.
The farm produces many kinds of food products to supply to Vientiane and the provinces, including pork, chicken eggs, fish and shredded pork with spices.
Ms Sengdeuane also plans to build more than 100 fish ponds in Xaythany district and hopes to invest in a prawn farm in the future.
The farm currently has over 20 ponds in Vientiane province.
Ms Sengdeuane thought she could expand her operations successfully to produce more food for the local market because she had her own animal feed factory, which opened a few months ago to produce feed for her pigs, poultry and fish.
She set up the farm in 2008 with 400 pigs. That number has now grown to thousands of pigs and piglets. The farm is considered to be a model of productivity in Vientiane province because it also raises poultry and fish for supply to Vientiane and provincial markets.
The farm breeds piglets naturally and through artificial insemination. She sells piglets each week to other pig farms and to farmers who intend to rear them. The farm also has a slaughterhouse.
Ms Sengdeuane's farm also has a waste water treatment reservoir and state environment officials regularly check the treatment system.
As an additional health measure, vehicles entering the farm are first washed.
Pig manure is supplied to nearby vegetable growers, with some being fermented as biogas and used as fuel on the farm.
vientiane times
