Lai (second left) exchanges the memorandum of agreement with Brown after the signing. Also seen are Eng and Hatch (right). — Photo by Muhammad Rais Sanusi
KUCHING: The state Agriculture Department signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with Malesiana Tropicals Sdn Bhd yesterday, to provide disease and pest-free banana planting materials for farmers throughout the state.
State Agriculture Department director Datu Lai Kui Fong said the collaboration, to spur the growth of the banana industry here, would involve the use of meristem culture, a method of biotechnology to exclude diseases and pests, and to propagate plantlets into large quantities that can be made available to the planters.
He added that disease and pest problems are the main causes of crop loss in banana plantations throughout the world.
Banana plants are susceptible to devastating diseases such as bacterial diseases (Moko and Blood diseases), fungal diseases (Panama disease and Sigatoka) and the viral disease (Banana Bunchy Top). Insect pests such as the stem and corm borers can easily destroy a banana plantation.
“The use of certified diseases and pest-free planting materials will prevent the spread of disease and pests to new plantations. Realising the importance of the availability of certified disease and pest-free planting materials to banana farmers in Sarawak, the department has embarked on an ambitious project – the meristem culture technology – to ensure that all plants produced are free from fungal, bacterial and pest organism.
“With the limited laboratory space and resources at our Agriculture Research Centre, we were not able to cater to the large quantities of the meristem cultured planting material requested by our farmers and growers.
“To tackle this challenge, a joint collaboration was initiated with a well-established private tissue culture laboratory in Sarawak, namely Malesiana Tropicals,” Lai said in his speech before the signing ceremony at Semongok Agriculture Research Centre, Jalan Puncak Borneo near here.
Also present were Malesiana Tropicals chief executive officer Graeme Iain Brown who signed the agreement and research director Dr Timothy Hatch who acted as witness. Agriculture assistant director (Research) Dr Lily Eng witnessed the signing on the department’s behalf.
The agreement will see the Agriculture Department producing the disease and pest-free meristem cultures for further propagation by Malesiana Tropicals. Lai mentioned that continuous close collaboration between the two agencies will ensure that all materials supplied by the company are certified to be disease and pest-free.
“With this collaboration, Sarawak banana farmers and growers can have easy access to disease and pest-free planting material. This will help to prevent the importation of exotic diseases and pests into our state, which is currently relatively free of major devastating diseases and pests,” he explained.
The advantage of using tissue cultured plantlets, Lai pointed out, is the ability to produce plants with uniform size and age, making the management of banana plantations easier.
Other benefits, he highlighted, are that the fruit bunches ripen more evenly and planting can be completed more quickly and true-to-type plants are obtained.
“It is the aim of our department to develop the banana industry in Sarawak so that it can contribute to our balance of trade. Through collaboration with the private sector, this can soon become a reality.”