Association sees money in pork

PURWOKERTO, Central Java: A monogastric association estimates that up to 20 million people in the country regularly eat pork, making this a potentially lucrative market segment.

Rachmawati Siswadi, chief of the Indonesian Monogastric Association (AMI), said with so many pork consumers more should be done to develop the pork industry.

The AMI aims to develop industries involving animals with single-compartment stomachs, such as swine.

"The industry is prospective because there are also potential markets abroad, like Malaysia and Singapore," she said on Wednesday.

The swine population in Indonesia is estimated at 11.3 million, the third largest in the world after Vietnam (13 million) and the Philippines (11.6 million). Indonesia currently has 2,000 pig breeders. -- JP