Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi
SIBU: The Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB) is experimenting with at least two prototype posts to be used in pepper cultivation.
When revealing this, MPB chairman Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi said the posts were constructed from concrete and fibre, and the experiment was part of the board’s research to improve the mechanisation of pepper farming.
He said the board was now doing field testing to see whether they were viable.
“The prototype posts are not expensive. They have a system where they can dispense fertilizers kept inside them,” he said when met here yesterday.
Nanta, who is Kapit MP, said MPB had visited a commercial pepper farm in Johor, where instead of using ‘belian’ wood, the planter used live plants known locally as ‘dadup’ as pepper posts on his 18-acre farm.
“The planter saves cost using the ‘dadup’ trees which spare him from having to install a sprinkler system. “The pepper grows well on the posts,” he noted.
With the current good market price of pepper at RM20,000 per tonne, he said the board encouraged the people to do pepper farming on a big scale so as to increase the country’s pepper production.
He said MPB had various assistance schemes to help those interested to become entrepreneurial farmers.
“We provide them with fertilizers, farming tools and subsidies,” he said.
Praising Malaysia as among the top five pepper producers in the world, he mentioned that Sarawak was the main producer of the commodity in the country.
“Sarawak pepper is a brand by itself. It is considered the top grade in the world,” he said.
It has been reported that the state has 55,000 pepper planters of whom about seven per cent are in Sibu.
The country’s pepper export value in 2008 was reported to be RM170 million, equivalent to 13,000 metric tonnes. Total production was 22,000 metric tonnes.
Nanta said the main cultivation areas in the state were Julau and Pakan in Sarikei, Betong in Sri Aman, Lundu and Serian in Kuching division.
He, however, noted that the cultivation activities in the state had then shrunk due to low price of pepper and change of land use.
“Planters abandoned their crop when it hit the lowest price back then and their land was turned into housing estate.
“And when there is change of land use, it is difficult for them to go back again,” he said.
On another matter, Nanta pointed out that the board on request by the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Tan Sri Bernard Dompok had introduced pepper cultivation in Sabah.
“For a start, now we are looking into Penampang area to do soil suitability survey,” he said.