Friday June 22, 2012

Keningau: Future dairy hub

By DURIE RAINER FONG
durie@thestar.com.my

KENINGAU: Sabah is poised to have the largest livestock centre in the country when the 834ha Keningau Livestock Integrated Centre here (KILC) is up and going.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak recently officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony of the KILC at Sook in this interior district, which is bound to house 2,000 cattles that would produce six million litres of milk annually.

Off to a good start: Najib officiating the groundbreaking of the centre as Musa shows the thumbs up.

“That sounds like a lot of milk,” Najib said, drawing laughter fron the crowd of over 5,000, among others, that included Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman and also Brunei Darussalam Education Minister Pehin Datuk Seri Dr Awang Abu Bakar Apong.

Pointing out that the milk would be distributed to the people of Sabah, in peninsular Malaysia and also Brunei, the Prime Minister placed hopes that this would spur the nation’s ambitions of becoming a prime dairy centre in the region in future.

The KILC is a flagship project under the Sabah Development Corridor (SDC) and is aimed at increasing the population of high-quality yield cows, and also to develop a sustainable breeding structure for cattles.

Collaboration: Najib witnessing the MoU between BIA managing director Hartini Abdullah (right) and Sedia deputy chairman Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, while Musa (left) and Dr Awang Abu (partly hidden right) look on.

“This project looks to be a successful one. It is also part of our strategy for rural development, which the government is vehemently undertaking,” he said.

The centre is expected to start producing its first batch of milk next year, with each cow producing an average of 12 litres a day.

An agreement was also inked at the ceremony between the Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority (Sedia) and the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA) for collaborations in livestock breeding and agriculture.