31/12/2007 (The Star Online), Kuala Lumpur - The East Coast Economic Region (ECER) plans to integrate cattle rearing in oil palm lands will provide dual income to oil palm farmers and can create 6,000 new job opportunities for the region, said Malaysian Palm Oil Board’s director-general Datuk Dr Mohd Basri Wahid. 

Out of the 6,000 job opportunities, he said some 4,000 jobs can be created in upstream activities such as tanning, meat processing, and feed milling. 

In general, Basri noted that the project will also help to develop the country’s small and medium-sized industries as well as increase Malaysia's beef production that currently produces only 23% of the nation’s demand. 

The national target is to expand cattle population to 1.49 million heads by 2010. 

By rearing cattle in oil palm plantations, implementation can also be speeded up as cattle graze on existing agricultural land without requiring the opening up of new areas. 

A herd size of 100 breeding cows and five bulls integrated systematically in 400ha of oil palm plantations, has potential to increase to a herd of 263 heads. 

Industry experts said the integration is a good alternative for farmers to gain additional income and maximise their oil palm land usage. 

They stressed that farmers need only to fork out marginal investments in the project as the cost is relatively low. 

As such, they said the rate of return of implementing cattle in their farms is quite “attractive” with low investment risk. 

They added that other benefits include low cattle mortality rates of below 5%, low maintenance, and relatively high internal rate of return of between 20 to 45%, with reduction in cost of between 20 to 35%. They noted that grasses normally available in oil palm areas are suitable and comparable to commercially farmed grass in terms of nutrients. 

Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute’s researcher and expert on cattle, Dr Johari Jiken Abdullah said cattle integration is the only viable and feasible cattle method that is cost effective in Malaysia . 

He said the open pasture method adopted in countries like Australia cannot be used here as it is not economical due to very long gestation period of between 10 to 15 years to bring in returns.