IPOH: The Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry has targeted to free at least 50 per cent of farmers and fishermen from the clutches of middlemen through the Jihad (strive) Against Middlemen in the Vegetable, Fruit, Livestock and Padi Subsector by 2020.
Its minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said it would take time for middlemen to be fully eradicated as the government could not force fishermen and farmers to choose the alternatives recommended as some of them were comfortable with middlemen.
He said as for this year, the government targeted to solve 10 per cent of issues involving middlemen by raising farmers and fishermen awareness on the evils of the middlemen through 10 strategies.
This includes providing financing, namely RM80 million through Agrobank to producers and RM40 million to marketers under the Tekun Business Venture Scheme, he told reporters at the launch of the programme here yesterday.
On complaints from farmers on the difficulty of getting an Agrobank loan, he said a ruling would be made to make it easy for farmers who had not defaulted on other loans to obtain the financing.
Ismail Sabri said other measures included providing 792 lorries from various departments and agencies to assist farmers in marketing seasonal fruits while contract farming involving fruit and vegetable growers would be expanded. — Bernama