Lucrative bird’s nest industry taking flight within Kingdom
Amru to be given agriculture honour
AMRU Rice founder and CEO Song Saran will be accepting the first Golden Agrow Award on behalf of his firm, an honour presented by the Asean Business Advisory Council, Saran said on Monday.
He will be presented the award during the second Asean Agriculture Summit in the Philippines on October 1.
“I am very happy to get the award as it reflects that our efforts are regionally recognised,” Saran said, adding that this is the second regional award he has received.
In 2015, Saran won the Young Entrepreneurship Award 2015 which was presented by The Takeda Foundation.
“It encourages us to continue our work to help Cambodian farmers,” Saran said, adding that efforts to push sustainable agriculture helped him clinch the award.
He said Amru has signed contract farming agreements with 10,000 organic rice farmers in the country and had so far purchased around 60,000 tonnes of organic paddy.
After inheriting his grandfather’s milling company, Saran established Amru in 2008. Within five years the company’s assets and equity grew from $500,000 to $4 million.
THEY may look like abandoned concrete buildings from the outside, but facilities for the production of bird’s nests have been materialising in growing numbers along the Kingdom’s coast.
The four- or five-storey structures often sit at the foot of mountains in seaside provinces of Koh Kong, Kampot and Preah Sihanouk. Bird songs are even piped in with speakers to attract more swallows.
As the value of bird’s nests has increased, more than 100 of these swallow homes have been built this year, said Cambodia Bird’s Nest Federation (CBNF) president Nang Sothy.
Until now, domestic production of bird nests did not have an official export market as vendors bought the stock and sold it around Asia.
Sothy said after a long period of silence, swallow-raising started seeing an increase since the beginning of last year. He cited the rising price as the cause for the recent surge in Cambodia.
Unclean nuggets sold last year, he said, could fetch between $600 and $650 per kg. But now, it can reach between $850 and $1,100 per kg. Cleaned bird’s nests, which could be sold for $1,500 last year, can now be sold for as much as $3,000.
“Market demand and price increases have led to more than 100 swallow houses being built across the country this year,” he said.
While there is no specific data on the number of swallow houses in the country, Sothy said it could be anywhere from 800 to 1,500. He said most were run by smallholders and were located in Preah Sihanouk, Koh Kong, Kep and Kampot province.
Bird’s nests have always commanded high demand in China, where people buy them for use in skincare, anti-cancer regiments and as a treatment for impotence.
According to Sothy, the Kingdom could harvest at least 800-1,500kg of bird’s nest a month and around 70 per cent could be exported after fulfilling domestic demand.
Despite having a bird’s nest federation that was established in 2014, exports have been facilitated unofficially through private traders.
Buth Rathany, who owns the 389 Bird’s Nest shop in the capital, said sales this year had nearly doubled compared to last.
“I have observed that many Cambodians now enjoy hav- ing products made from bird’s nests,” she said.
A swallow raiser in Kampot province who asked not to be named said she is also benefitting from the price increase. She could sell nests for around $1,800 per kg, whereas last year a kg went for around $1,500.
Hean Vanhan, director-general of the General Department of Agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture said the ministry does not have any details about the bird’s nest market.
“Recently, we launched the market for exporting bananas to China, so there will be markets for other products opening up in the future,” he said.
The Post previously reported that data from 2016 showed that the global bird’s nest industry was estimated to have a value of $5 billion annually. China is the largest consumer while Indonesia and Malaysia are leading suppliers.