A Queensland-based manufacturing company has helped boost productivity on 100 Laotian and Cambodian farms with the help of a locally made cattle product.

Over the last two years, Four Season Co managing director Charles Olsson has donated a molasses-based cattle product to disadvantaged smallholder farmers across Laos and Cambodia.

The feed contains minerals and supplements which cattle can lick, offering an additional source of nutrition.

It also contains an anti-parasitic compound, serving as a cost-effective alternative to the standard process of forcibly administering treatment for parasites.

“It’s usually expensive,” Mr Olsson told 9news.com.au.

“You have to bring the cattle in, you have to put them in a cattle crush and then you give them a liquid drench, squirt it down the throat of each animal.

“The supplement block offers a low-cost way of delivering a mechanism that can lift farmer’s productivity.”

Without treatment – which most farmers normally can’t afford – cattle productivity and health suffers, Mr Olsson said.

Mr Olsson’s donation comes as part of a decade-long study by Sydney University, working in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

The study aims to address rural poverty and food insecurity in developing countries by equipping farmers with improved agricultural knowledge.

“This enables a more sustainable livelihood, providing new income opportunities that support their families sufficiently to stop the social decline of poverty,” Professor Peter Windsor said.

Prof. Windsor said the blocks have proven of particular value following a prolonged dry season last year, leading to drought and a shortage of standard cattle feed, leaving cattle more prone to parasites and nutritional deficiencies.

Mr Olsson, who says there is a “huge” market for products like the block in Australia already, hopes to one day introduce his feed supplement as part of pilot programs across South East Asia.