KUCHING: The State Farmers’ Organisation (PPNS) has been tasked to design a mechanism and system to ensure that Sarawak’s agricultural produce reaches the global market.
Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Agriculture Modernisation, Native Land and Regional Development Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said it was crucial to move the whole supply chain – from production, processing and marketing from all over the state directly abroad.
Hence, he has asked the Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (Fama) to help PPNS in building a marketing network not only within the state or country but also in the overseas market.
He pointed out that Sarawak was currently a net importer for food products, adding that the aim was to ensure that this would be reduced.
He was officiating at Fama’s Direct Sales from Farm (JTDL) and My Rakyat programme at Canaan Square here on Thursday (Oct 28).
Uggah noted that Sarawak was currently selling agricultural products to a number of countries including Singapore.
“This is what we want to build. The most important thing is we must be able to market our products. We have a lot of products and we must make sure these can reach the global market.
“In order to reach the global market, the product must be competitive with similar products from other places,” he said.
Uggah hoped that through the JTDL programme, farmers would be able to fetch better prices for their produce as they would not have to go through a middleman.
He pointed out that farmers and fishermen faced problems in marketing their fresh produce during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thus, he said the state government had allocated funds to purchase the fresh produce from farmers and fishermen across the state in order to ease their burden.
“We strive to ensure that our farmers are protected, especially in ensuring that their products can be sold, and this can directly increase their income,” he said.
He added that the state government was also making efforts to provide marketing infrastructure for farmers including establishing collection, processing, and packaging centres (CPPCs).
“In addition, our chief minister has approved RM10 million this year to help farmers by strengthening PPNS’ marketing system so that it will be more modern and sophisticated to facilitate exports,” said Uggah.
According to Fama, the implementation of JTDL this year has recorded a sales value of RM2.3 million nationwide with the participation of 364 contract farmers in 278 locations throughout Malaysia.
Apart from this, My Rakyat was also introduced to help the people deal with the impact of rising prices and cost of living for residents in urban areas. In line with the government’s move to ease the social and economic sectors, starting next year, Fama will expand the programme to 135 new locations nationwide.
