Uggah (right) and the other delegates listen to a briefing by Ahmad (left). Also seen is Nyalau (second right).
LUNDU: The attractive global market price of cocoa has led to suggestions that farmers in the state should take cocoa planting seriously.
Currently selling at RM8 per kilo, Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah hoped the price was attractive enough for farmers, especially small-holders, to take up serious cocoa planting.
He was confident that cocoa would be able to generate good income and help farmers in the state, especially the small-holders.
According to the Malaysian Cocoa Board, there was also a good demand for Malaysian-made chocolate both domestically and worldwide.
He said the federal government was currently reviving the cocoa plantation industry after seeing a boom in the 1980s but declined in the 1990s.
A few factors such as disease and pest invasion were pin-pointed as reasons why the crop became unpopular among farmers but Uggah insisted that due to modern technology and research, such problems could be solved these days.
“New technologies are available through research and we have the Malaysian Cocoa Board to assist farmers with that. They are willing to help and work with farmers if they are interested,” he added.
He said what farmers could do now was to plant at least two cash crops to minimise losses if one crop were to experience a fall in prices.
Sarawak currently produces about 600 metric tonnes of cocoa yearly involving some 6,000 small-holders.
Uggah was in Lundu yesterday to visit a cocoa research centre together with a few board members of Malaysian Cocoa Board including the chairman Datuk Dr Marcus Mojigoh, a board member Datuk William Nyalau Badak who is Lubok Antu MP and other officials.
The research centre at Kampung Pasir Hilir, off Jalan Biawak, is headed by senior plant pathologist Dr Ahmad Kamil Mohd Jaffar who briefed the visitors on the operations of the centre.