Charoen Pokphand Group—controlled by Thailand’s richest family—and Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday their joint venture will start producing hydrogen this year in the Southeast Asian country.

The Japanese automotive giant has tapped engineering firm Mitsubishi Kakoki Kaisha to develop hydrogen production equipment that will use biogas derived from local chicken manure and food waste at CP Group’s farms. The equipment will be installed in November this year at Toyota’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Samut Prakan province, south of Bangkok.

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The facility—which can produce 1,000 liters of hydrogen per hour—is Toyota’s first pilot project to produce hydrogen using biogas. Toyota and its trading arm, Toyota Tsusho, will build a system to compress, store and transport the biogas and hydrogen, the company said, without disclosing the investment cost for the project.

Toyota and CP Group—Thailand’s biggest conglomerate with interests in retailing, distribution and agriculture—first announced the partnership in December. The duo will use hydrogen to power CP Group’s delivery trucks and help reduce the company’s carbon emissions.

CP Group is one of the world's largest producers of animal feed and livestock. The Chearavanont brothers draw their wealth from the company and are the richest in Thailand with a net worth of $34 billion. Their father Chia Ek Chor, along with his brother Choncharoen, started the business in 1921 with a shop selling seeds imported from China to Thai farmers.

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