Hafidz quits lucrative job for fig venture
BENTONG: Since having his first taste of fresh fig when he was working with an oil and gas company in Iraq four years ago, Mohamad Hafidz Arifin, 32, became interested in agriculture and started learning more about it.
When he came home early last year, he planted a few fig plants and saw that they could grow in Malaysia. Realising its market potential, he quit his more than RM15,000 a month job to venture into agriculture full-time.
“Fig, or its scientific name Ficus Carica, is grown in the Middle East and not many people dare to try to plant it in the country, despite the high demand for the fruit, which can also be sold in the form of juice.
“I challenged myself to make it a success and to quit my job, although the income was lucrative,” said Hafidz, a graduate in human resource management from Universiti Putra Malaysia.
With a start-up capital of RM200,000 and knowledge acquired from friends and colleaques, as well as through the Internet, Hafidz said he built a green house to plan fig plants.
He planted 400 fig plants and they produced fruits, which he sold for RM60 per kg at the farm, while the retail price was RM80 per kilogramme.
“What is interesting about planting fig is that it does not require a large area or take long to yield fruits. The fig plants yield fruits by the fourth to sixth month and each plant can produce up to 40kg per harvest.”
On the market for figs, Hafidz said he had his hands full meeting demand from hotel operators and health juice manufacturers.
He said fig was high in antioxidant, vitamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, calcium, iron, phosphorus, manganese, sodium, potassium and chlorine, as well as fibre, and could address colon and cholesterol.