File photo showing Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas speaking at a past press conference.
KUCHING (Feb 15): The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has decided not to allow ‘pasar tani’ and ‘pasar tamu’ to operate in Covid-19 red zones in the state, said deputy chief minister and SDMC chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
“The first step we take is to ensure the agricultural products that can be sold will be sold. Therefore, we have instructed the local Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Organisation to purchase the products.
“For farmers who have problems selling their agricultural produce, they are to contact the Department of Agriculture in their respective division or district,” he told a press conference on Covid-19 updates today.
Uggah pointed out that this was to ensure that whatever produced by the farmers would be bought while the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Organisation will find out how to sell the products.
He added that this was to prevent the farmers from coming into town areas to sell their products, which may put them into risk of Covid-19 infection.
“The second (step) we take is to ask the Ministry of Local Government and Housing or district council to evaluate the situation at certain places under their areas, especially in the red zones, whether those pasar tani can be opened or not.
“We leave that to the local councils to decide,” he said.
Uggah stressed that all these decisions made are not to cause problems, although problems inevitably arise.
“To minimise the problem we try to put a solution. That is what we have been doing since the Movement Control Order (MCO). The Agriculture Department and LKIM (Fisheries Development Authority of Malaysia) have also bought products by fishermen and farmers who could not sell their products because they could not go to town.
“I hope this will be communicated to the people on the ground so that they know even though they cannot sell their products in town, they can still get their income from their products,” he said.