Pig-friendly
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Founder of Kuching-based Green Breeder, Puan Veronica Chew THE STRAITS TIMES PICTURE BY LU WEI HOONG |
IN CONJUNCTION WITH CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION 2026
GONG XI FA CAI
The delicious braised pork served at many Singapore reunion dinners this Chinese New Year may have travelled two days by sea from Malaysian Borneo, Lu Wei Hoong wrote for the Singapore-based The Straits Times (ST), published and updated by the publication yesterday and today respectively.
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Founder of Kuching-based Green Breeder Puan Veronica Chew's son, Dr Ng Yong Han
THE STRAITS TIMES PICTURE BY LU WEI HOONG |
Sarawak-based Green Breeder, located about 700km away from Singapore, is currently the only farm in Malaysia licensed to export live pigs to the Republic – and the East Malaysian state wants to send many more.
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Founder of Kuching-based Green Breeder Puan Veronica Chew's daughter, Dr Ng Yi Xian
On a recent sunny day, a drove of pigs was being loaded on the docks at Kuching port. White-clad workers guided the squealing animals into cages for a Singapore-bound vessel.
Green Breeder ships up to 3,000 live pigs weekly to Singapore. In 2024, the farm sent 121,685 pigs, or 13,385 tonnes of pork, to Singapore, accounting for 8.2 per cent of the Republic’s pork imports.
“Fortune tellers read pig livers to tell the future. A pig must be slaughtered before a VIP can enter the longhouse. We treasure pigs the most. So it’s easy for us to encourage people to make a living from them,” Sarawak’s Minister for Food Industry, Commodity and Regional Development Stephen Rundi Utom told The Straits Times on 20 January 2026.
Datuk Seri Rundi, who is of Iban heritage, said the porcine creatures have been a familiar presence in his longhouse “since the day I opened my eyes to the world”. A longhouse is a traditional communal home for some indigenous groups in East Malaysia.
The Iban ethnic group constitutes 30 per cent of Sarawak’s population.
Sarawak aims to more than double the state’s annual pig production, from 350,000 animals in 2025 to 860,000 by 2030, targeting RM1 billion (S$324 million) worth of exports for that year. The push would cement the East Malaysian state as the country’s pork-producing hub at a time when disease outbreaks and land-use pressures are reshaping the industry elsewhere.
The state’s demographics have contributed to the growth of the pig-rearing industry, which is located away from residential areas and operates using modern methods with strict hygiene standards.
Pork consumption is deeply embedded in Sarawak’s cultural landscape. About three-quarters of the state’s population – including indigenous Iban and Bidayuh communities, and ethnic Chinese – consume pork. Muslims make up around 20 per cent of the population.
“We have adopted better technology after visits to Denmark, China and Japan to learn best practices, particularly in pig farming,” said Dr Rundi. The state successfully contained an African swine fever (ASF) outbreak in 2022 and has since eradicated foot-and-mouth disease, he added, bolstering confidence in its systems and processes.
Trade in live pigs between Malaysia and Singapore was halted in 1999. In 1998, the Nipah virus outbreak devastated pig farms in the peninsula, killing 105 people and forcing the culling of more than one million pigs. In March the following year, an outbreak that occurred among abattoir workers in Singapore who handled live pigs imported from Malaysia led to 11 reported cases of human transmission, and the death of an abattoir worker in the Republic.
Singapore resumed live pig imports only in November 2017 – and exclusively from Sarawak. Since then, the East Malaysian state has shipped more than 675,000 animals, valued at RM742.5 million in total, to the Republic.
Meanwhile, the Singapore authorities are looking to resume live pig imports from Pulau Bulan, Indonesia, after these were paused in April 2023 following the detection of ASF in a consignment of pigs from the island.
Singapore imported 133,600 tonnes of pork products – live pigs, chilled and frozen meat – in 2024. Its top three sources of chilled and frozen pork were Australia, Brazil and Germany.
Viruses like Nipah and ASF remain the pig farming industry’s biggest threats. Though harmless to humans, ASF can wipe out entire herds and force farms to cull infected stock.
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A poster warning about the risk of ASF displayed on the wall of a Green Breeder pig farmhouse.
THE STRAITS TIMES PICTURE BY LU WEI HOONG |
While Sarawak eyes expansion, local residents, civic and Muslim advocacy groups in West Malaysia continue to raise a stink over the persistent odour and hygiene issues of traditional, open-air pig farms.
Apart from Sarawak, there are fewer than 300 pig farms operating in the states of Perak, Pulau Pinang and Selangor.
In Peninsular Malaysia, pig farming has been reshaped by land competition and disease outbreaks. Selangor – once one of the country’s major pork producers – recently saw relocation plans for pig farms stalled amid environmental concerns.
To be sure, pig farms are a contentious issue in the Muslim-majority peninsula. The animals are considered unclean, according to the tenets of Islam, and consumption of their meat is haram, or unlawful, for Muslims.
Moves to accelerate the closure of pig farms in Selangor have intensified in 2026, driven by a directive from the Selangor ruler to address environmental pollution, particularly in the Tanjung Sepat and Sepang areas.
On 10 February, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah stated that he would “not consent to pig-rearing activities in any Selangor district” due to pollution concerns and limited land resources, following an audience with Prime Minister yuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Two days later, the state government announced it would stop issuing pig-farming licences and aims to close all existing breeding farms in the state as soon as possible.
No compensation will be given to the farmers, except in cases of ASF-related culling, Selangor agriculture executive council member Encik Izham Hisham told the local media on 24 February. He indicated that the shuttering process would take six months.
Elsewhere, there have been protests against pig farms in 2025 in Malay-majority areas in Pulau Pinang and Perak, with residents and opposition Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) citing odour and water pollution issues.
Malaysian Federal Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Encik Chan Foong Hin noted that the growing opposition to pig farming in the state is partly due to competition for land use on the developed West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia.
“Some say Tanjung Sepat is better suited for tourism. How can that mix with pig farming? It’s a competition between industry and agriculture on limited land,” he told ST. Tanjung Sepat is a coastal town in Selangor, a popular weekend getaway known for its fresh seafood and agricultural attractions, particularly dragon fruit farms and coffee.
To stabilise prices ahead of Chinese New Year, in anticipation of surging demand before the major festive season, the Malaysian government has given the go-ahead for chilled and frozen pork imports from 70 abattoirs in 10 countries. Discounts of up to 20 per cent are available at 50 retail outlets across Malaysia as the government urges sellers to keep pork prices affordable.
Nationwide ASF outbreaks in the past few years have also driven pork imports higher. Malaysia imported 74,513 tonnes of pork in 2025, up fivefold from 2021. About one-third of the country’s pork supply is now imported.
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Recently born piglets feeding from a sow.
THE STRAITS TIMES PICTURE BY LU WEI HOONG |
Quarantine, disinfection measures
Green Breeder, the anchor farm of Sarawak’s 804ha pig farming area, introduced strict biosecurity measures following an ASF outbreak in neighbouring Sabah in 2021. The farm is located 105km from state capital Kuching, and is a 1½-hour drive from there.
I visited the facility in January for a first-hand look at how the pig farm is run.
Visitors must undergo a 48-hour quarantine after arriving in Kuching and avoid other pig farms before entry. Vehicles pass through disinfectant pools and spray bays. Workers and guests shower and change into scrub suits before stepping into production areas that can house around 143,000 pigs at any one time.
Bars of soap and disinfectant footbaths for shoes are placed at the entrance and exit of each enclosure, requiring everyone to scrub in and out.
“We have an exclusive wash centre just for our lorries. No other hog lorries are allowed (there) to prevent cross-contamination,” the farm’s co-founder Veronica Chew, 62, told ST.
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A staff member walking over a disinfectant footbath to minimise the presence of the African swine fever virus in Kuching.
THE STRAITS TIMES PICTURE BY LU WEI HOONG |
Fruit trees are not allowed around the farm to prevent attracting bats, which can carry the Nipah virus, she added.
For me, the main surprise was the smell – or rather, the lack of it. Instead of the choking stench I had imagined in a pig farm, here there was only a lingering muskiness in the air that brought to mind wet animal fur.
Unlike traditional open-air farms that produce strong odours, Green Breeder uses modern farming methods to minimise unpleasant smells. The closed-house system is equipped with water curtains and ventilation fans to maintain a temperature of 28 deg C, which is comfortable for growing weaners (piglets that have been separated from their mothers and transitioned from milk to a solid diet, between four and eight weeks of age) and butcher hogs raised specifically for meat production and usually slaughtered between six months and one year old. The hogs’ manure is collected for biogas production.
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Pink-skinned weaners feeding from a trough inside a closed farm.
THE STRAITS TIMES PICTURE BY LU WEI HOONG |
Floating pig pen, Danish piglets
Green Breeder was founded in 1994 by Ms Chew and her late husband Gregory Ng.
“He (Dr Ng) said chilled pork has a short shelf life of seven days. Transportation alone would take two days. Why not send live pigs instead?” recalled Ms Chew.
The couple purchased their first ship, Bintang Liberty 1, converting it into a temperature-controlled floating pig pen for the first shipment to Singapore in 2017.
To boost productivity, Green Breeder imported 759 breeder pigs from Denmark in 2023.
“The Nordic breed has some of the best genetics available,” said Dr Ng Yong Han, Ms Chew’s younger son, who is a veterinary doctor and director of the farm. Piglet production has already improved from 23 to 25 piglets per sow per year (PSY), and is expected to rise further over three generations.
Denmark remains free of ASF, supported by strict livestock transport controls and a 70km wild boar fence along its border with Germany – measures Sarawak officials say offer lessons in disease prevention.
Danish sows now average 35 piglets PSY, up from 24 in 2003, said Mr Jens Munk Ebbesen, director of food and veterinary issues at the Danish Agriculture & Food Council. He was visiting Kuala Lumpur in early February on a trade mission.
“Top herds reach 40 to 42 PSY, but the national average is 35. This allows farmers to maintain production with fewer sows, reducing housing space and feed use,” Mr Ebbesen told ST.
Denmark was the world’s sixth-largest pork exporter in 2024, with pork exports valued at US$2.73 billion (S$3.4 billion). The country, with a population of around six million, is well known for having twice as many pigs as humans.
While pig farming requires adherence to a strict biosecurity regime and hard work aplenty, Ms Chew does not regret leaving her civil engineering job in 1994 to rear swine.
She believes Sarawak’s future lies firmly in modern agriculture and farming methods – and in pigs raised to high, export-grade standards.
“I don’t think it’s (a) dirty (business). In the early days, I even helped a sow give birth. Piglets are cute and never complain – unlike my stressful days in construction, stuck between clients and contractors,” she said with a laugh.
End©Permadu
| Adapted by Fauzi Kadir Chief Editor
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