Agriculture no longer symbolizes poverty — Junz
KOTA KINABALU: Agriculture no longer symbolizes poverty, said Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Junz Wong.
He said agriculture had become a business which involved not only transactions in physical cash, but also through online methods that transcended boundaries at lower costs.
He said tapping into the digital economy was important to enhance productivity in the agricultural services industry and public service.
Wong said the digital economy was often associated with Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“The revolution drives economic, social and development growth towards digitization.
“It also improves productivity as well as better efficiency in administration and delivery system at lower costs while at the same time reap high returns as all the processes are done digitally.”
Wong stated that in his speech which was delivered by Assistant Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Dr Daud Yusof, who represented him in officiating at the information and communications technology (ICT) seminar themed ‘Digital Economy: Role and Potential of ICT in the Services of Agriculture Ministry’ here yesterday.
He said the industrial revolution also put forward the concept of big data that had been introduced in Malaysia in 2013.
To this end, he said the government had urged all agencies to be prepared and identify big data analytic and data sets to implement open data for the core services of each agency.
In line with big data, Wong said the nlockchain technology had also been introduced and popularized.
“Blockchain is known as a decentralized system and open ledger system that functions as an open database whereby information is shared through nodes.”
He said the most popular usage of blockchain was cryptocurrency such as bitcoin.
He added that bitcoin was also used in Sabah in the purchase of a piece of land.
Wong hoped that the ICT seminar would be an interactive platform to share latest technologies and discuss the potential of ICT in improving the delivery system of the civil service.
Meanwhile, Dr Daud hoped that agencies would upgrade their ICT network as there had been problems whereby certain reports failed to reach districts or headquarters due to problem with the network.
He added that the ICT seminar, which was held at six zones in Sabah annually, aimed to promote ICT literacy among civil servants.