Image credit: Malay Mail
KUALA LUMPUR: Gerakan Ekonomi Malaysia (GEM) aims to leverage on the knowledge, expertise and past successes of Malaysia Agricultural Research and Development Institute's (Mardi) subsidiary Mardi Corp to revamp the nation's agriculture sector.
GEM and Mardi Corp had on March 26, signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the terms and conditions in establishing mix-farming estate(s) for production of crops.
Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad lauded the effort and said the initiative should have been done 50 years ago.
"Many small farmers do not have the economies of scale, research nor the knowledge to optimize their return and GEM can play a pivotal role in changing the landscape," said Dr Mahathir at the ceremony recently.
During the colonisation era, he said the British came to Malaysia and planted rubber and various crops to Malaysia as the land was fertile.
"They did it successfully through Guthrie and various organisations in a big scale farming. To be successful, we have to unite and produce on a big scale," he added.
Dr Mahathir said Mardi's own technologies and innovations in agriculture and food had been accepted as gold standards in many countries including Africa and Latin America.
He said the "value extraction" of the expertise and knowledge by Mardi Corp will go a long way to uplift the standards and incomes of farmers in the country.
The concept, which involved the amalgamation of agriculture land to be utilised for mixed farming on a big scale will be carried out with the support from Mardi in the areas of production of mix farming crops.
Mardi Corp will advise on the concept, mechanism and forecast revenue of the best mix crops and seeds to ensure the best return.
On the other hand, GEM would focus on identifying the suitable land areas and financing arrangements for the said purpose.
GEM president Armin Baniaz Pahamin said the company's intention to professionally operate and adopt the latest technology through a cooperative to optimise crops production and to pilot test the concept on at least 1,000 acres of land.
"This big scale farming will provide better economies of scale to utilise better technology in machineries, harvesting methods and technology in logistics for distribution and market-reach," he said.
Armin said most small farmers were earning a significant low revenue of less than RM500 a month from their farms and were heavily dependent on government subsidy and support to feed their family.
"Most of the farmers are buried in debt traps awaiting the harvest and the cycle continues without any exit plan to escape from the debt trap."
"Through the cooperative, we aimed to provide the farmers with a sustainable and more comfortable regular income than their current earning by producing the crops themselves," he said.
Most if not all, small farmers in Malaysia were in the B40 category while Malaysia was importing more than RM50 billion a year on various agriculture crops, Armin said.
"According to the Department of Statistics, out of 42 agriculture commodities, only seven fruits were sufficient to fulfil the local demand and seven types of selected vegetables have an adequate supply for domestic needs.
"It is strategically and technically wrong especially for a country as Malaysia, with such fertile soil for farming to be importing a huge amount of agricultural products when we can grow them domestically."
"Understood some crops are cheaper to be imported but there are substantial amounts of crops that we can produce ourselves," Armin added.
Mardi Corp chief executive officer Zaidi Shahrim said the project would use technology and expertise from the institute that would be packaged by the company.
"It is an effort to humanise technology and make it available to ordinary and everyday farmers," he said.
Armin expected the project as an enabler to propel GEM's agriculture transformation agenda, leading to improved agriculture operational efficiency, asset optimisation and increased productivity.
GEM is also involved in the micro enterprise and automotive ecosystem.
GEM is a non-governmental organisation registered with the Registrar of Societies driven by experienced entrepreneurs and professionals from various fields with an aim to champion local products, businesses and entrepreneurs.
Source: https://www.nst.com.my/business/2021/04/679845/gem-leverages-mardi-revamp-malaysias-agriculture