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Plant factory alternative for future farming

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Dr Mohamad Roff

SERDANG: The Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) has developed a plant factory prototype as part of its preparation for the future of farming.

Its director-general Datuk Dr Mohamad Roff Mohd Noor said the plant factory, equipped with the latest technology to accommodate up to 30,000 trees, to serve as a pilot project, before the latest technology in the urban agriculture practice to be extended to the public.

He said as a pioneer in modern agriculture, the plant factory could address various issues in the agricultural sector such as land shortages, weather and natural disasters, including the attitude of future farmers who might not like to be exposed to hot working environment.

Dr Mohamad Roff

“Based on these factors, Mardi as the research institute, will provide the technology that will meet the needs of the farmers in the future to prevent people from becoming uninterested in agriculture.

“Mardi has found the best alternative via the plant factory, where the technology believed to be able to help ensuring the country to continue producing agricultural products without depending on the weather,” he told Bernama today.

He said this when met after the launch of a book entitled 50 Resipi Masakan Malaysia as well as paper works entitled Teknologi Keropok Lekor Lembu and Sup Ikan dan Cendawan, officiated by Public Service Department director-general Datuk Mohd Khairul Adib Abd Rahman, in conjunction with Mardi’s 50th Anniversary.

Mohamad Roff said the plant factory was an indoor vegetable production system where all the necessary elements such as light, temperature, a greenhouse gas and the humidity were controlled with the support of an automatic fertiliser and irrigation control system.

He said the plant factory could produce fresh, nutritious and chemical-free agricultural products and at the same time, reduces the space usage where crops could be grown vertically compared to horizontally as practised on the conventional farms.

“Through the plant factory, farmers could also ‘design’ their own vegetables according to their personal taste such as if they wanted it to be high in vitamin A or C or high in oxide, they just have to control the light as different levels of light can have a different effect on the plant,” he said.

Mohamad Roff said the plant factory could become a big industry in the coming years but thus far the agricultural industry players were yet ready to fully explore the technology due to high cost involved. – Bernama

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