First Dairy to invest RM50m in farm

PAHANG-BASED First Dairy Farm (M) Sdn Bhd (Fidaf) is investing RM50 million in a
dairy farm as it seeks to quadruple its cattle head-count.
The company plans to boost milk output to 8 million litres per year.
Malaysia consumes 1.5 billion litres of milk a year and the bulk of it are shipped in
from Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
As the nation’s living standards improves, milk consumption also increases.
Currently, Malaysia’s dairy market of 60 litres per capita means that an average
person drinks a glass of milk every other day.
In a statement released yesterday, Fidaf president Datuk Wan Abdullah Wan Salleh
said his company plans to increase the number of Jersey cows to 1,200 from 284
now.
Fidaf is leasing 446ha in Muadzam Shah from the Pahang state government for 50
years. It had applied for another 400ha for future expansion.
Its farm is part of Malaysia’s East Coast Economic Region and its business falls in
line with the government’s policy to promote domestic milk production through
modern farming.
Its cows are milked twice a day with each producing 22 litres daily. By the end of the
year, he estimates output rising to 22,000 litres per day or eight million litres
annually.
Basically, this volume can fill up more than three Olympic-sized swimming pools.
To avoid bacteria contamination, Fidaf’s pasteurisation technology is fine-tuned to
freezing milk at -4° Celcius in three seconds instead of the conventional timeframe of
three minutes.
“The barns are air-conditioned to maintain the quality of milk produced. We’ll also
monitor the movement of the cows through closed-circuit television,” he said.
“We supply fresh milk to Dutch Lady and other dairy product manufacturers. It is
timely for us to market under own brand,” Fidaf executive director S. Muhd Alwi said.