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RM96,300 spent on buying produce from farmers, fishermen

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Dr Abdul Rahman Ismail

KUCHING: A total of 39 tonnes of fruits and vegetables worth RM90,000 has been bought from more than 30 farmers statewide as of Saturday.

The excess farm produce was bought by Area Farmers’ Organisations (AFOs) and Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (Fama) who acted as wholesalers and will supply the produce to the market.

At the same time, a total of 485kg of fish worth RM6,300 has been bought from members of five Area Fishermen’s Associations (PNKs) statewide as of Sunday. PNKs play a role as wholesalers and buy fish catches from fishermen and do marketing through deliveries from online orders and bulk selling from mobile lorries (“Fish on Wheels” concept).

According to Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development Assistant Minister Datuk Dr Abdul Rahman Ismail, the Sarawak government has set aside a total of RM2.3 million to assist farmers and fishermen in relieving them of marketing issues and ensuring constant flow of incomes.

“For the farmers’ group, a total of RM1.7 million has been set aside for this specific purpose. Meanwhile, a sum of RM600,000 was set aside for the fishermen.

“Based on the assistance, the state government through the Ministry of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land & Regional Development Sarawak (Manred), in collaboration with various agencies will buy back excess farm produce from farmers and fish catches from fishermen who could not sell to the market amidst the Covid-19 crisis.

“These are the efforts from the state government in alleviating the problems faced by the farmers and fishermen, groups which have been vital in keeping the Sarawak agriculture sector running all these years,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He further announced that another initiative from the programme ‘Jualan Terus Dari Ladang’ is scheduled to begin on April 14 involving Subis AFO and Fama Miri at Kompleks Islam Sarawak, Miri.

“This initiative involves buyback of various fruits and vegetables by AFO, while Fama will provide the sales facilities at the predetermined strategic site to enable sales activities to the public and wholesalers. This will also be a business matching venue to link farmers to wholesalers,” he said.

He added that the Sarawak government is also looking into collaborating with the private sector inn online marketing and home delivery in which it will facilitate the online business sector, with AFOs as the suppliers of farm produce to the online platform providers, who will assist in terms of marketing and delivery of these produces.

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