Teresa Kok

Kit Siang, Betty Chew, Guan Eng and I admiring the cute little newborn piglet.

A DAP delegation headed by Lim Kit Siang visited a pig farm owned by Chin Nam Yee in Tanjong Minyak, Malacca last Friday.

Chin is the chairman of the Malacca Livestock Breeders Association. He led the campaign against the forced closure of pig farms in the state.

It was my first time visiting a large commercial livestock farm and I was very impressed by it. Before we entered into the farm, all of us had to go through a special lane where we were sprayed with a liquid which smelled like “Dettol” to prevent us from bringing any kind of disease into the farm.

We saw a big pond where all the waste from the chicken and pig flowed into and be treated. Chin told us the water from the pond will never flow into the river or outside the farm unless the farm is flooded.

We were shown the waste management plant. All the pig dung were brought to this treatment plant to be dried in a big tank. The dried poo could be used as fertilizer and any excess were burnt. With careful management and with the technology available to farms like this, the claims of pig farms polluting rivers and environment are untrue.

Chin said his farm was judged The Best Pig Farm by the environmental department of Malacca about 10 years ago. He said many of the association’s members have been trying to apply for permits to operate pig farms but all their applications were turned down by local authorities. In the hour at the farm, we hardly smelled any pig waste.

Many other pig farmers were with us during out tour of the farm. Most of them are MCA members but they were extremely upset with MCA in Malacca because it failed to defend them and help them with their licensing dilemma.

In their desperation, they staged demonstration outside MCA ADUN Seah Kwi Tong’s house. ADUN Cheah Kwi Tong told the media the pig farmers were ungrateful to MCA and him.

After reading his statement, the pig farmers were pissed off and decided to give him an ang pao with RM36 which he refused to accept.

The closure of 82 pig farms in Malacca will affect the rice bowls of about 5,000 workers and farm operators and their families. The downstream effect will be a huge blow to the economy of Malacca.

Eat n Sleep.

Chin Nam Yee and his prize import from the U.S.A.

Left to right: The pig farmers and workers protest while we gave them moral support; Chin explains the waste treatment process; Fancy some for your garden?; No, it’s not a swimming pool.