KUCHING: Deputy Minister of International Trade, Industry and Investment Datuk Malcolm Mussen Lamah has expressed intentions to expand hydroponic farming in Batang Ai.
Mussen, who is the Batang Ai assemblyman, sees hydroponics as an avenue to enlarge the agricultural industry and believes that hydroponics has the potential to boom in his constituency.
“I want to learn, I want to expand and replicate hydroponics to my area. We can set up something like this there,” he said.
Due to the popular fishing industry in Batang Ai, he pointed out that farming could also be another avenue for people to generate income.
“While waiting for the fish to grow in size, the people can survive on hydroponics, a combination of both.
“But we need a commercial outfit to help them, they can rely on both vegetables especially when vegetables are quite easy for them to do,” he told reporters at a press conference during a site visit to Emma Hydroponics Farm today.
Mussen also stressed collaborations between the state government and industry players to support initiatives such as hydroponic farming to enhance commercial agriculture to assist farmers expand their businesses.
“For Batang Ai, we welcome participation from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) in growing the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) to increase quality supply and trust of these products,” he said.
With the development of Indonesia’s upcoming capital city, Nusantara, he said demands for vegetables could continue to increase therefore, production of vegetables also needs to move forward.
“This project is not only limited to Sarawak, if we can; we need to ensure the quality of product is good, we can even link with the Sarawak Trade & Tourism Office (STATOS) in Singapore and sell to them,” he said.
Also present at the press conference were Yu Kok Lee, managing director of Emma Industries Sdn Bhd and Assoc Prof Dr Edwin Mit, deputy director for strategic planning, quality management, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).
