S’wak to turn surplus rambutan into titbit

KUCHING: The Sarawak government, through the State Agriculture Department, is contemplating buying surplus rambutan fruits and turn them into dehydrated rambutan or dried rambutan titbit.

Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said rambutan is another fruit that might go to waste during peak period because of oversupply.

He said during the period when there are so many fruits, farmers may just leave the fruits uncollected because they cannot eat them anymore.

Uggah, who is Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development (Minred), said he had directed the Agriculture Department to look into the dehydrated rambutan, which he and the department had tried.

“We may dehydrate it or make it dry to become titbit. If you have so much fruits, you can’t consume them all fresh.

“So what the department is going to do is to collect the fruits, open up stations to store, and then dehydrate or dry the fruits,” he told reporters after officiating at the shipment of durian paste here yesterday.

Noting that at the moment they are more on the experimental stage, he said at the same they are also looking at companies like A.T.A Supplies, which buys kampung durians to be processed into durian paste for export, or some other exporters that have outlets within Kuching or within Sarawak.

“As we all know, there are a lot of titbits being sold during festive seasons and so instead of importing them, why not we produce our own local made titbits,” he pointed out.

Uggah said his ministry was trying to sort out the supply chain problem in Sarawak so that whatever is planted by the farmers will be bought, which will eventually raise their income level.

He said their agriculture business model now is to make sure whatever is planted by the farmers generate revenue for them.

“The philosophy is we buy and collect whatever is planted by the farmers,” he said.