KUCHING: New methods such as digital economy and technology have to be applied in the agricultural sector to ensure sufficient food supply in the future.
Assistant Minister of International Trade and Industry, Industrial Terminal and Entrepreneur Development Datuk Mohd Naroden Majais pointed out that as the world population increased, there was a corresponding increase in demand for food.
He said that it was uncertain if the global food production would be sufficient to fulfil the needs of this increasing population.
“As one of the focus sectors in the Sarawak Economic Action Council (SEAC) plan, the agriculture sector not only enables us to achieve the goal of food security but also enables us to become a net exporter of agricultural produce,” he said.
He was speaking during a Sarawak Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Dialogue titled ‘Covid-19: Recovery and Empowerment of SME Businesses’ live streamed on Agrobank’s Facebook page yesterday.
He said that the state government had introduced various digital initiatives in all economic sectors, including agriculture.
“Among them is an agricultural project which applies precision farming via fertigation system for the production of vegetables, such as the one at Rampangi Permanent Food Production Park. Smart farming will be expanded throughout Sarawak,” he said.
Besides this, Naroden said that the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and technology sensors could also be used for activities like soil nutrition checking, precision fertilisation, intelligent swiftlet farming, and precision empurau farming.
He pointed out that the state government had created infrastructure and marketing networks to facilitate the agriculture sector.
“The use of technology, modern infrastructure, and marketing initiatives have greatly benefited farming entrepreneurs, such as optimising production, increasing the quality of products, penetrating the global market, creating employment opportunities, and so on,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said the state government had established SEAC to revive and strengthen Sarawak’s economic development post Covid-19 for the next 10 years.
SEAC, he said, was based on three pillars – economic prosperity, inclusive society and environmental sustainability.
He added that sectors which would be focused on included data centre and innovation, high-value downstream manufacturing, entrepreneur development as a catalyst to upskill SMEs, re-greening Sarawak through aggressive industrial forest plantations, renewable energy, infrastructure and connectivity, among others.
“This economic plan is expected to drive Sarawak towards becoming a high-income and advanced state. To achieve this, we need strong collaboration between the government and private sectors, institutions of higher education, business chambers, financial institutions, and experts in various fields to formulate and realise this economic recovery and development plan,” he said.
Also participating in the session were Academy of Sciences Malaysia fellow Dr Madeline Berma, Agrobank covering president/chief executive officer Khadijah Iskandar and Grasicili founder Munir Ashim Abdullah.
