By Mustakim Ramli
SHAH ALAM, Sept 1 — The state government aims to develop 2,000 acres of modern agricultural farms a year as part of its efforts to produce young farmers.
State executive councillor for agriculture Izham Hashim said the approach would enable the farmers to be trained by experts or successful industry players and at the same time, to produce a new farmer’s group.
“We have started a 30 acres project in Bukit Changgang and a 120 acres project in Sungai Air Tawar. Apart from that, we have also initiated the project in Sungai Panjang under the Smart Selangor Agro Park programme which involves collaboration from big industry players.
“The big companies have to guide the small entrepreneur from the agricultural development aspect as part of their responsibilities,” he said during the Media Selangor’s Bual Bicara virtual talk show titled ‘Developing The State, Continuing The Freedom’ that was aired live on Media Selangor’s Facebook page and SelangorTV Youtube channel last night.
He was optimistic that the programme’s success rate will be higher compared to the concept of an agricultural entrepreneur working on his or her own without any guidance.
“For example, company A has the expertise to plant and export bananas, so we give them 100 acres, out of which 70 acres will be done by the company and the remaining 30 acres to be distributed to the new farmer.
“The big company is responsible for guiding them (new farmers) from the beginning on the method to seed, plant, fertilisation, pest control and then buy their products for exports,” he said.
“The new approach will provide a better result compared to giving them money and land which the farmer needs to work on independently, leading to the low success rate in the old approach,” he said.
The food security programme is among the 25 initiatives included in the Kita Selangor 2.0 Package with a focus to boost the agro-food sector, supply chain efficiency and produce 1,000 agropreneur in five years.
The programme will provide land, rolling capital as well as guidance to attract the participants to become agropreneurs.
