Uggah: Farmers’ success proves rural transformation a reality
ASAJAYA : Agriculture produce processed in a rural factory deep in the interior of Sarawak are now being sold with world class packaging that meets the world market requirements through smart partnership between Sarawak government and private sector.
This was disclosed by Deputy Chief Minister, Datuk Amar Douglas UggahEmbas at the official opening of Banana Tree Sdn Bhd banana processing factory in Asajaya on Thursday
He pointed out the success of rural farmers through such joint ventures is proof that rural economy transformation in not a fairy tale as sceptics dismissed it to be.
“Look at the banana chips that I hold in my hand, they are no longer wrapped in ugly transparent plastic, they are so beautiful in a world class packaging with Halal label, HACCP & GMP accreditation, meeting all the terms and conditions of international market,” Uggah said.
Uggah said the RM5 million factory at Kampung Sebayor a rural coastal village in Kota Samarahan Division prove that economic opportunities can be created in the rural areas .
“In the past, when we plant too many bananas, they will go to waste. Once you have too many, you have oversupply because there will not be enough buyers.
“Today, the fruits are no longer planted for Kota Samarahan, Kuching, Sibu or Miri, but for the whole world. “This is Sarawak's future. Not fairy tales. In the past planting and rearing livestock was not an issue but selling was the stumbling block. Now, not anymore,” he said.
Uggah said the marketing problems of agriculture produce from the rural area are solved through appointing anchor company like Banana tree SdnBhd – who will have a factory, own sizeable farms and rural farmers as their contract farmers to meet their factory production.
“The anchor companies also have the market and I hope they will buy from the local farmers at a good price,” Uggah added.
Uggah who is also Minister for Agriculture Modernisation, Native Land and Regional Economy said at the moment the factory is only processing about 25 tonnes of banana per month, half its capacity.
“The Sarawak government is very serious in helping rural farmers, the subsidy for 2018 and 2019 was RM60 million but Chief Minister have agreed to increase it to RM100 million,” he said.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer of Banana Tree SdnBhd, Tho Tze Bing revealed that they started the project in 2014 by opening up about 50 acres of banana farm.
He said they are currently exporting their products to China, and there are also demands from Singapore and Indonesia.
He said his company works closely with the local farming community with the help from Agriculture Department of Sarawak.
“Now we have contract farmers, since 2016 in Terasi village. We planted 10 hectares with 10,000 trees with 10 participants and government allocation of RM75,000 for land clearing, seedling and tools with a target first harvest of 150 tonnes.
“In the year 2017, we went to Sebandi, Moyan, Sebayor, and appointed 10 contract farmers to plant 8,000 trees with an allocation of RM100,000 for land clearing, seedling and farming tools, our target first harvest is 123 tonnes.
“In 2018, for MoyanLaut we opened 10 hectare to plant 8,100 trees with 10 participants with RM75,000 allocation for land clearing, seedling, farming goods and tools target monthly harvest of 136 tonnes.”
Tho said the total target harvest is 409 tonnes per month involving 30 participants.
Tho added that the company's export target for China is 180 containers per year but at the moment they are only capable of producing 4 containers per month or 48 containers per year.
Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, who pointed this out yesterday, hailed the Putrajaya ruling as a good decision.
“Well, that is the Federal Court's decision so we just accept it, I've not gone into details on that,” he said when met by reporters at Bangunan Baitul Makmur in Petra Jaya yesterday.
Abdul Karim, a lawyer by profession, believed that the latest court ruling will “restrain unscrupulous people from speaking unscrupulously, acting unscrupulously towards any individual, organisation, company or the government”.
He added that the government “is seen as an entity just like an organisation or a company”.
As such, Abdul Karim said the government has the right to take legal action should any person make false statements against it.
“To say that the government has done something wrong, like in this case, the money from the government has suddenly disappeared you must come up with facts.
“If it is not true, then I believe the government can sue you. This is exactly what happened. He ( Kota Sentosa assemblyman Chong Chien Jen) was saying there was a black hole.
“And that the money goes into the black hole and ‘hilang' (missing) when the actual fact is that it's not missing,” he pointed out.
On Wednesday, the Federal Court in Putrajaya ruled that the federal and state governments can sue individuals for defamation when dismissing Chong's appeal against the majority decision of the Court of Appeal which ruled that the Sarawak government and the State Financial Authority (second respondent) could sue him for defamation.
In April 2013, the Sarawak government and the State Financial Authority filed an action in Kuching High Court against Chong for defamation over his allegations that “RM11 billion disappearing into a black hole”.
The allegations were published in a national Chinese daily and a new portal as well as pamphlets distributed by Chong and DAP.