Sweetcorn producer to offer calves to corn growers
Sweetcorn producer to offer calves to corn growers
The only Lao canned vegetable processor, Lao Agro Industry Company, expects to distribute calves to its sweetcorn farmers within the next five years after discovering that corn plantations and processing can be combined with livestock breeding.
The company has set up this project because it hopes that the corn farmers will able feed their cattle with the leftovers after the corn harvesting; and to ensure the farmers will have extra income from selling their cattle.
The project is a cooperation effort between the company and the Livestock Research Centre.
An official of the company said the company now has more than 650 cows at the farm, including over 270 calves, almost 330 cows and eight oxen in Thoulakhom district, Vientiane province.
“Once we have at least 1,000 cows, we will begin distributing them to the corn growers,” he said yesterday.
The company has not distributed the cattle to the farmers yet because it wants to take time selecting the quality ones. “And it has also yet to announce the project to the farmers,” he said.
The company started cattle breeding two years ago and it feeds the cows with the leftovers from the canned sweetcorn processing.
“So the farmers can also feed their cattle with the leftovers after the corn harvest, including the low quality corn and the cobs,” he said.
“Finally the farmers can also use the cattle dung on their corn plantations again. This aims to reduce their expenditure on fertilisers, which is in line with the government's aim.”
He said that based on the initial plan, there may be two procedures on calf contribution – one being that the farmers pay for the cattle in advance.
Another way is that the farmers shall receive the calves free initially and repay the company when the cattle have been fattened and are ready for sale.
In this way the farmers will get extra income from the company after sale. “This means we will make an agreement with the farmers to get a cow at 100kg when it is grown; however, if the weight is over that, that will be the profit of the farmers once the cow is sold,” he said as an example.
A Livestock Research Centre official Mr Phouthon Phonkhampheng said the project will be sustainable. With advice from the centre, this project also has grass plantation activities planned to feed the cows. Currently the company is establishing a test grass plantation on almost two hectares in Thoulakhom.
The leftover from sweetcorn farm and canned sweetcorn production will be the additional feed or extra feed for the cows. The main feed is rice straw because it can be kept for a longer time.
