MARKETING OF BETONG AGRO PRODUCTS
KUCHING: When discussing agriculture modernisation, Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas is not only talking about cutting-edge technology in processing the products but also how they are going to be transported more efficiently.
This is particularly so in the case of Betong Division, located about 250km from here, when all these years, farm and natural products were transported by lorries to the main markets in the city here, a journey that can take up to five hours.
Uggah, the state’s Agriculture Modernisation, Native Land and Regional Development Minister, said this mode of transport will be a secondary choice in three years’ time when a short take-off and landing airport, or Stolport for short, at Bebuling, Spaoh in the division is operational.
“We need to start production in three years from now as by then the Bebuling Stolport will be ready to airlift our produce to the markets,” he said in a statement issued at the end of his visit to Betong Division yesterday.
According to him, Betong Division is executing plans and programmes to gradually increase food production, with the Betong/Sarikei Food Basket and the Sadok Agropolitan areas earmarked to be its main production centres.
Uggah said the Sarawak government had already put in place a number of preparatory facilities, including the Simpang Layar collecting, processing and packaging centre (CPPC) for durians as well as another one in Spaoh, where the Bebuling Stolport, estimated to cost RM108 million, would be situated.
“The Area Farmers Organisation office is being upgraded to modernise the processing of pepper, Nipah (palm) sugar and kelulut (stingless bee) honey. We are also setting up several precision-farming demonstration plots to promote modern agriculture concepts like fertigation,” he said.
He said the Sarawak Land Custody and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) office here would do livestock breeding and fattening in its oil palm estates.
“The plan is also for it (Salcra project) to produce around 1,000 calves each year,” he said, adding that private investors would be invited to participate in the project.
