KUCHING: The State Farmers’ Organisation (SFO) must view itself as a corporate body and to work aggressively towards generating income for its members.
“SFO is still new so we have yet to corporatise it. However, it must start adopting the nature similar to that of a corporate body, despite the actual organisation being a statutory body.
“From then onwards SFO will be able to move towards marketing its farm produce and generate profit to be distributed to its members. “This subsequently helps to improve their socio-economy by 2025,” said Agriculture Native Land and Regional Development Assistant Minister Datuk Roland Sagah Wee Inn.
He noted that one of the efforts to move towards the goal was reflected in the initiative of Area Farmers’ Organisation (AFO) to become “anchor company” which will buy agricultural products from its members.
“This means you must think as businessmen. What you should do now is identify the market such as a large market like China, India or even our neighbour Indonesia, where we have already exported some of our local products.
“Look at the possibility so that we can study the foreign market and then tailor it with the local market production,” he said.
Sagah said this when representing Deputy Chief Minister cum Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development (Manred) Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas to officiate at the SFO’s 35th annual general meeting (AGM) held at Imperial Hotel here today.
SFO must work with Department of Agriculture (DOA) Sarawak to ensure that its members can produce high quality products and even going for organic produce which can be marketed with high prices to foreign markets, he further stated.
He added that it was Uggah’s vision for the soon-to-be-established SFO’s own complex in Samarahan to become the centre hub for collecting, processing and packaging of local produce.
The construction of the new building with the size of three acres has commenced on Sept 22 and is expected to complete by March 2022.
A total of 250 SFO members from 28 AFOs attended the event.
