KUALA LUMPUR: Farmers in Cameron Highlands are aware of the anticipated dry season from April to July and will do all they can to ensure there will be no short of greens, said Cameron Highlands Vegetable Farmers Association secretary Chay Ee Mong.
He said they would be adopting several alternative measures to ensure their farming operations are not affected like using the Rain Water Harvesting System and building water retention ponds.
Cameron Highlands farmers, he said, were an experienced lot and were still able to produce vegetables as normal during the dry season last year even though farmers in many other states were not able to do so.
“However, we have to make early preparations so as to ensure there is no short supply (during the dry season) this year,” he said when contacted by Bernama yesterday.
There some 2,400 vegetable farmers in Cameron Highlands, which produces 30 per cent of the country’s vegetable needs with about 600 tonnes of greens shipped out daily to wholesalers and retailers acrosss the country.
Prior to this, Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob had sounded a warning about the onset of the dry season and its impact on agriculture activities.
Meanwhile, Dr Mohd Hisham Mohd Anip, Senior Meteorological Officer at the National Climate Centre, Malaysian Meteorological Department, when contacted by Bernama, said the hot weather would begin at the end of March as the sun would be over the Equator.
“It will be hot and dry with temperatures rising as high as up to 38 degrees Celcius in the northen parts of the peninsula while in other states, temperatures around 35 degrees would be a normal thing,” he said. — Bernama