S’wak allocates RM50 mln for agriculture devt
KUCHING: The Sarawak government has allocated RM50 million to implement its agriculture development plans in efforts to become a net exporter of food products by 2030, says Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah.
He said this was necessary to enable Sarawak to compete with countries in this region, as well as to ensure that the quality of food products is of international market requirements.
“At the moment, we are a net importer of food products by RM3.6 million each year and we want to reverse that and the way to reverse that is by using advanced technologies because we need to increase our productivity,” said Uggah, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development.
He was speaking to reporters after officiating at the International Society for Southeast Asian Agricultural Science ( ISSAAS) Congress 2018 here yesterday.
“We hope that by using the latest technologies, we will increase our productivity, make ourselves more competitive and enable us to reach the target we have set,” he added.
He said the three- day congress is timely and Sarawak can learn from it and have a model that can be used in Sarawak.
“We are also collaborating with UPM ( Universiti Putra Malaysia) and we are confident that we can move forward in this development because UPM has more than 30 scientists in agriculture at their Bintulu campus who can help us to work on this.
“We hope to be able to sit down and define the various sectors that we can work on and hope we can come up with something before the end of the year,” he added.
The ISSAAS Congress 2018, themed ‘ The Industry 4.0: Agriculture Technologies Advancement’, is attended by 300 participants from various countries including Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. — Bernama