Foreign Workers Labour Shortage

Camerons tourism faces backlash over lack of foreign workers
Sunday June 20, 2010

CAMERON HIGHLANDS: Tourism in cool Cameron Highlands, famous for its tea plantations, vegetable and strawberry gardens, is "under threat."

And it has got nothing to do with intruders, just the lack of foreign workers. Hoteliers and tour operators said the lack of helping hands might lead to more tea plantations and vegetable farms closing down.

Hotelier Datuk Yee Shan Kon said there would be a chain reaction if the agriculture sector suffered.

"The butterfly farms, cactus gardens, souvenir shops, restaurants and sundry shops will also be affected. The entire wellness of the highlands will be affected," said Yee, who is managing director of four popular hotels here.

Titiwangsa Tours and Travel Sdn Bhd director Chai Kok Sing said Cameron Highlands was also known as the "Giant Green Carpet" due to its tea plantations and "Rose Centre of Malaysia" for its nurseries.

Chai said the Tourism Ministry's records showed that 725,000 tourists visited the highlands last year.

"The Camerons is packed with tourists local and foreign during the school holidays and public holidays. It is also a popular destination for tourists from the Middle East between July and August and Singaporeans during the school holidays in June, November and December," he added.

Vegetable farmers, and nursery, strawberry farm and tea plantation operators had recently appealed to the Government to lift the ban on Bangladeshi workers and to extend foreign worker permits from the present five years to 10.

"Three of my workers left in Feb-ruary and a lot of chores in the nursery are not being done," he said.

Cameron Bharat Plantations Sdn Bhd managing director Datuk Kesav Kumar Agarwal said about 5,000 tourists visited his three tea houses and two plantations daily during peak periods.

He said the labour problem had forced two other plantations to cease operations. -- The Star

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Adopt modern methods, farmers urged
Wednesday June 23, 2010

The agriculture sector in Cameron Highlands needs to move away from conventional farming methods and start adopting high-tech farming practices to address its labour shortage.

Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (Fama) deputy director-general (development) Sahbani Saimin said the sector needed to seriously find a long-term solution to the problem rather than continue to rely on foreign labour.

"Most of our farms in Malaysia still adopt conventional farming methods but in Amsterdam, for example, they have big green houses that are fully computerised," he said.

"While 20 workers were needed to do the job last time, it only takes two workers to do so now because with computers, all it takes is just one press of the button and all the plants can be watered and mineralised at the same time.

"We can do the same in Cameron Highlands," Sahbani told reporters at the National Food Terminal in Gopeng yesterday after opening a seminar on Fama’s new ruling which required all agriculture produce to be graded, packaged and labelled.

Vegetable farmers as well as nursery, strawberry farm and tea plantation operators had recently appealed to the Government to lift the ban on Bangladeshi workers and to extend foreign worker permits from the present five to 10 years.

They claim that the shortage of foreign help had affected the production of vegetables in Cameron Highlands, causing a steep increase of between 50% and 100% in the price of greens since April.

Sahbani said he personally did not think that the labour shortage in Cameron Highlands was entirely due to the Government’s ban on foreign workers.

"A part of it is also due to pay. Some of the workers are running away to other farms that pay them even just RM50 more," he said, adding that the production of greens in the country had not been affected as much as claimed.

"It has been affected to a certain extent but not that much," he said.

He said Fama aimed to promote ethical and good practices among farmers, collectors, wholesalers and retailers with the introduction of the new ruling beginning next year.

"We hope that they will be able to get better prices for their produce and, at the same time, consumers get to enjoy higher quality and safer fruits and vegetables," Sahbani said.

Fama, he said, had introduced the ruling after various studies showed that post harvest practices were very poor in Malaysia.

"This has resulted in 30% of our harvests having to be discarded by the time they reach the wholesalers.

"So instead of earning RM1, farmers only earn 70 sen. Farmers are not the only ones who lose out but wholesalers do as well," he said. -- The Star