SERDANG: FGV Holdings Bhd via its wholly owned subsidiary is targeting to supply 10,000 native chicken a week by year-end, under the brand Ladang'57 to be made available at AEON Big hypermarkets nationwide.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Economy) Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said the government had allocated RM234 million to Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) for agriculture projects under Projek Pembangunan Peneroka (PPP) to improve the settlers' income as well as Program Pembasmian Kemiskinan Tegar Keluarga Malaysia (BMTKM).

"To date the government had already approved 1,036 native chicken projects under Felda nationwide. Native chickens are increasingly in demand and get high demand and prices. One of the strategies to deal with the problem of extreme poverty is to encourage participants to raise native chickens.

"With the cooperation of FGV and AEON Big, the marketing problem for native chickens will definitely be addressed," he said while officiating at the launch of the FGV Alma-Padiberas Nasional Bhd (Bernas) collaboration of native chicken food and the marketing of Ladang '57 native chickens here today.

Head of integrated farming, Abdul Razak Aya said Malaysia currently produces eight million heads of native chicken annually and almost 10 per cent was exported to Singapore while the remaining are distributed mainly in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Penang.

To boost the supply and ensure the availability of the native chicken supply in the market, FGV had been proactively leading PPP and BMTKM under the contract farming arrangement.

"For a start we are targeting to supply about 1,000 native chicken a week to AEON Big but believed it could be increased once the project was established nationwide," he said.

Abdul Razak said the strength and availability of FGV in the consumer food product segment allows FGV to play a very important role for the country as the main implementer or 'National global food company' in the chain of the country's food security agenda, and more importantly as the main implementer for Dasar Agro Makanan Negara (DAN) 2.0.

With the potential global market size of consumer food products at more than US$11 trillion, Malaysia as a country rich in natural resources should be able to be competitive by giving a higher focus in the food industry and the production of high quality downstream products, he said.

"FGV's involvement in the National Food Store Programme and PPP is expected to further strengthen the position of Felda/FGV to play a role as a national food company in transforming the national food security agenda.

"Overall, the potential production of agricultural products through this collaboration can reach as much as 74,000 tonnes per year or an estimated sales value of RM250 million," he explained.

On its high-quality native chicken feed brand ALMA, he said this is also part of FGV's initiative in response to the government food security agenda.

FGV collaborates with Bernas to produce a new formulation of chicken feed that uses by-products from local paddy and rice factories to reduce the dependency on imported chicken feed and ultimately ensure product availability at a reduced price.

The initiative will reduce 10 per cent of production cost by substituting imported grain corm components and a total of 30,000 tonnes per year of by-products material will be used to produce ALMA native chicken feed, he said.

"For the animal feed business, FGV has operated three processing plants in Kapar Selangor and in Bukit Sagu and Semambu in Kuantan, Pahang.

"In 2021, FGV has successfully marketed 38,000 tonnes of ALMA-brand fodder. For the first half of 2022, about 35,000 tonnes had been marketed and FGV is confident that the sales target of 75,000 tonnes this year will be achieved," he added.

-- BERNAMA