Agriculture, education Uggah’s priorities in Bukit Saban
SPAOH: Bukit Saban incumbent Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah has set his sights on introducing and promoting modern agriculture and better education here in the next five years if he is re-elected in the 12th Sarawak Election.
He said as he sees it, Bukit Saban folk have plenty of land.
“The way to gainfully develop them is through modern technology-based agriculture,” he said when speaking to the media after launching the Paku River cleaning and beautification campaign at the Spaoh Waterfront here Friday.
When asked on his main agenda in developing the constituency if he wins, Uggah said that two agroparks in Bebuling and Lubok Tamang, Saribas have been approved.
According to him, these will be modern agriculture centres.
He added that modern agriculture is all about increasing the people’s income by increasing their productivity.
“This will be done using methods like fertigation and hydroponics, which are very efficient and non-labour intensive,” he said.
Apart from that, Uggah said that he wants farmers to diversify their activities instead of being over-reliant on commodities like pepper and oil palm, as there is downstream processing they need to explore as well.
With the construction of the airport in Bebuling, it will assist the farmers achieve that, he added.
“Our airport at Bebuling has just started construction and when it is ready in 2023, it will help to fly agricultural produce to the markets,” he said.
Uggah’s next priority is education, as it is the key to a better life and escaping the clutch of poverty.
Hence, he wishes to cultivate the education excellence among Bukit Saban’s children as he feels the future of education will be different.
“It will be very challenging as well, so we have to make sure our people are information technology-savvy to access new knowledge and do business,” he said.
Uggah revealed that there is a digital district community centre here and soon another one in Betong.
“We also have the Betong CENTEX (Centre of Technical Excellence),” he said.
He also said that his other agenda was to bring the strong racial unity and harmony here to greater heights.
“We need to preserve and protect this at all costs for our state to prosper,” he said.