Agrobank urged to help rural farmers develop their lands
KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas has invited Agrobank to work together with the state government to address the difficulties faced by rural farmers, especially in getting capital to develop their land.
He said very few rural farmers had succeeded in getting financial facilities from banks, because many neither had titles for their land nor steady income in order to meet requirements by the banks.
He pointed out that while the government had assisted these farmers by providing them with subsidies, many failed because the recipients would sell the subsidised fertilisers instead of applying them on the crops.
“My request now to Agrobank is to think of how we can work together to resolve this issue of ‘kurang modal’ (lack of capital),” he said when officiating at the launch of Agrobank Corporate Financing Centre here yesterday.
Uggah, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development, said one of the ways for Agrobank to cooperate would be through the venture capital ( VC) concept introduced by Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg.
He said under this concept, both state government and Agrobank would take up equities in promoted agriculture production projects and eventually, withdraw once the projects are commercially viable and let the various stakeholders – be they farmers or landowners – to run the projects on their own.
“Even though we will have our own bank - DBOS ( Development Bank of Sarawak), I think the contributions of Agrobank would still be necessary especially in the social economic development in Sarawak – namely in the agriculture and rural transformation programme ( RTP),” he said.
He also suggested both the state government and Agrobank to hold joint programmes to promote the bank’s financing facilities to the rural folk.
“One of the issues we want to overcome is the income gap between the rural and urban areas. As we move to TN50 ( National Transformation 2050), this gap should not be there. If it’s still there, this would lead to social problems as seen in other countries,” he said.
Uggah also regarded the agriculture industry as being very important to Sarawak, as it contributed 14 per cent ( RM14.86 billion) to the state’s gross domestic product (GDP) for last year.
He said that undert he agriculture transformation programme, Sarawak aims to increase export and at the same time, reduce the food import bill which registered RM4.4 billion last year.
“We want to improve our food security. The SSL (self-sufficiency level) for beef is 10 per cent, while SSL for rice is 53 per cent. There are still some pockets of poverty in rural areas
“According to Sarawak Planning Unit (SPU), there are at least two million hectares (of land) available for development, including almost one million hectares of NCR ( Native Customary Rights) land,” he said.