Putatan Food Production Park ready
PUTATAN: The Permanent Food Production Park here has been completed and ready to be used, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Yahya Hussin.
The Agriculture and Food Industry Minister said the park is equipped with the infrastructure and facilities required to start operation.
“I hope that they will start by next month or by the end of this year,” he said to reporters at the Pusat Latihan Pertanian Bersepadu near here yesterday.
“The five-hectare park costs RM15 million to prepare. It is equipped with a compost house, operation house, collection centre, green house, cabin, jack roof structure, Holland and others,” Yahya said.
He said that they would be renting out the facilities at the park to 10 participants/ entrepreneurs who would be planting rock melons.
The produce from the park would be supplied to both the local and export market, he said.
Aside from Putatan, the other parks are located in Tawau, Kinabatangan and Masilau.
Yahya also stressed on the need for Sabah to focus on food production such as fruits and rice.
Meanwhile, in his speech at the launch of the Good Agriculture Practice closing ceremony also at the centre, Yahya congratulated the Agriculture Department for its success in guiding agriculture food producers whereby 78 farms had been certified with the myGAP and 18 farms received myORGANIK certification.
He said that a monitoring programme on the residue of poisons in vegetables had also successfully reduced non-adherence to the MRL or Maximum Residue Limits from 17 per cent to 13 per cent based on 384 samples that were analysed until June 2017.
He added that the participants of the park must ensure their farms were certified with myGAP.
“This will be the main contributing factor to the sales of agriculture food both at the local market and for export outside of the State or country such as to Brunei Darussalam.
“Brunei has enforced and agreed to only import agriculture food products that are certified under the myGAP and myORGANIK scheme starting January 1, 2018,” he reminded.
Yahya also said that the Ranau district produced 19,966.94 metric tonnes of 29 types of highland agriculture products that were estimated to be worth about RM39,933,880 in 2015.
Sabah’s vegetable export to countries such as Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines as well as to West Malaysia and Sarawak amounted to 6,992 metric tonnes, he said.
Also present yesterday were the ministry’s permanent secretary, Datuk Ahmad Awang Hashim, Putatan District Officer Haji Ag Abd Ghani Pg Yusof and Putatan Agriculture Officer Wan Masamah Wan Abedin.