PhnomPenhPost-Aug 29, 2022
After more than 10 years as a migrant construction worker, Buy Roeun became interested in raising rats for meat. He had seen grilled rats for sale as street food in his hometown of Phnom Sampov, in Battambang province, but the 34-year-old did not intend to compete with the vendors of wild rats. “I saw that the way rats are raised commercially in Thailand produces hygienic delicious meat and had the idea of doing the same,” he said. Since migrating to Thailand to work as a construction worker in 2005, Roeun had enjoyed the rat meat of Thailand. He reasoned that it could be done in his hometown. In 2017, while working by day in construction, he began to study the art of raising rats. Once he began raising them in Thailand, he started sending pregnant mothers to his parents, who followed his instructions and soon had hundreds of animals. In addition to doing raising the animals, he created a Khmer language Facebook page “Sovanracha Rat Farm.” He updates the page often. “When I started to create online content, I found that I attracted interest from many people. There was plenty of demand, and whenever I returned to my hometown, I sold many of my rats,” he said. In early 2021, as Covid-19 spread across the two countries, Roeun made the decision to return home and commit to farming rats full time. “I want to attract people who are unsure of the safety of rat meat because they do not now its source. I want them to see my farm, which is just like that of any other animal. They should not think of my commercial rat meat as any different from pork or beef,” he added. Read more at: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-post-depth/boom-business-thai-style-rat-farm-battambang
