Organic farming can grow fast in Sarawak: Reseacher

Vijaya Menon, The Borneo Post, 31 October 2008

SANTUBONG: Converting to organic agriculture could be easier in Sarawak as the most lands here are free from contamination, participants of the ‘Organic Asia – The Way Forward’ conference here, were told yesterday.

“In Sarawak, large tracts of land are relatively free from industrial contamination. Apart from that, farming still takes place in the traditional way. These make conversion to organic farming easier,” said Sarawak Department of Agriculture senior assistant director (research) Lai Kui Fong.

He pointed out that for organic farming, normally treatment of the soil and water itself took at least three to five years.

And this was necessary to ensure that farming standards meet the requirements to obtain certification in organic farming.

Lai pointed out that although organic farming in Sarawak was still at an infant stage, this alternative agriculture practice had a good prospect given several other advantages.
“We are confident that organic farming can grow fast and well here as we have large germplasm and biodiversity that fit the niche export market,” he said.

The senior assistant director revealed that in fact, organic farming in the state had been initiated by several people in the private sector in collaboration with the agriculture department.

“To date, we have one organic farm which has been certified under the Malaysian Organic Certification scheme and we hope more organic farmers could be produced,” he said.

Some local farmers, he said, had also claimed that they had foreign certification and the department hope that they could visit the department and allow the authority to look at their standards.

“If their practices comply with our standards, then we can fast track their recognition with Malaysian standard and they will not have problem,” he added.

According to Lai, under the Ninth Malaysian Plan, the state is hoping to get at least five organic farmers to undergo the certification scheme under the tenth Malaysian Plan, another 25 farmers.

The target was set at these figures because it was better to first concentrating on few farmers to ensure their success and sustainability before more farmers were to be involved in the field as organic farming was not easy, he said.

On encouraging the local organic farming scenario, Lai said the department aimed to set up training centres to train local farmers to go organic.

Currently, the department was trying to set up a farming and composting demonstration centre at the Semenggok agriculture centre.

“The planting has already been undertaken and hopefully the centre can be completed next year,” he said.

According to Lai, the main problem faced in organic farming here was the lack of awareness and knowledge in this field.

Sarawak has yet to reach the international standards in organic farming and there is a need to have international group to recognise Malaysian standards.

“And we also need to look at some international standards to see possibility for harmonising with our standards. If there are any grey areas, we have to overcome them.

“There are differences between the national and international standards in agriculture.
“Some practices are not applicable here due to climate and local practices and at the same time we cannot expect them to adapt to us,” he said.

Therefore, there was a need to come to a common understanding and the conference was a good opportunity towards this, Lai added.

ACO OPERATORS’ SUCCESS

Five small to medium organic operators, all certified by the Australian Certified Organic (ACO), have been recognised for their innovation and product quality on a large-scale national platform as finalists, and three have been winners in 2008 Food Challenge Awards.

Other contestants in the awards are giant food companies such as Nestle, Kraft and Heinz, but ACO certified operators dominated the finalists’ list, including the hotly contested category, ‘Health and Wellness’ section, by filling half of the ten places in the final.