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- Uggah (centre) with (from right) Harden, Julaihi, Mussen and myOrganic (Sarawak) certified farmer Chua Lee Kwang show some organic fruits.— Photos by Chimon upon
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- Uggah (back row, centre) and members of the seminar’s organising committee in a group photo with the MyGAP and myOrganic certificate recipients. The deputy chief minister is flanked by Julaihi on his left and Harden. Mussen is on back row, sixth right.
KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas wants all farms in Sarawak to meet the Malaysian Good Agriculture Practice (MyGAP) standard by 2020.
He lamented that the current number of farms in Sarawak that had been certified by MyGAP is not very impressive.
“As of today, we only have 106 farms in Sarawak certified by MyGAP, which covers a total area of about 630 hectares. Because of that, I have set an ambitious target of 100 per cent farms to be certified by MyGAP by 2020.
“This is the key performance indicator (KPI) for state Department of Agriculture (DOA) director to achieve,” he said at the launch of a seminar on sustainable, quality and safe agriculture production at Imperial Hotel here yesterday.
Uggah, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture and Rural Economy, said the state DOA must work out ways on how to encourage farmers to get MyGAP certification.
He said the DOA must also focus on how to encourage Sarawakians, especially the young people, to take up farming with good agriculture practices.
“This is because if we are doing our farming transformation later on, we are not only producing products for our own consumption, but we are also producing them for the outside market.
“So, we are not looking at producing one container of ‘terong asam’ a year – we are working on producing 1,000 containers of ‘terong asam’ a year.
“So under that circumstance, it requires us to practise good agriculture that complies with the requirements set by the other countries as well,” he said.
As Sarawak moves towards increasing its export of food products, he said the state government would make sure that the products meet the requirement of overseas market; and food producers in Sarawak must also strive to brand themselves as organic product producers.
“It is my hope that one day Sarawak would become a leading producer and exporter of branded organic agriculture products.”
MyGAP is a comprehensive certification scheme for agricultural, aquaculture and livestock sector.
Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) is an agricultural practice that emphasises on environment, economy and social aspects to ensure the produce is safe and of good quality.
Since MyGAP is recognised worldwide, it facilitates the export of the products.
Also present at the function were Assistant Minister for Rural Economy (Interior Areas) and Plantation Datuk Francis Harden Hollis, Assistant Minister for Rural Economy (Coastal Areas) and Fisheries Datuk Julaihi Narawi and Assistant Minister for Agriculture Malcolm Mussen Lamoh.