Spice up farm produce

Spice up farm produce
Friday July 9, 2010

MALAYSIAN farmers should be bold enough to cultivate new vegetable and fruit species to provide consumers with a wider choice, said Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama) senior assistant director (regulatory) Suhaimi Ismail said.

He said the farmers were generally contented with their existing varieties as they were confident the wholesalers would buy their supplies.

He, however, said many farmers dared not plant new vegetable and fruit species for fear the wholesalers might not purchase them.

"In Cameron Highlands, for example, most of the vegetables and fruits planted there are of the same varieties that were planted 40 years ago," he said during a recent trip with farmers to several farms in Beijing.

He said only recently, a few farmers had started planting a new tomato variant using quality seeds from China that could reach a production of 8kg per plant compared with 4.5kg for the regular one.

The particular tomato, he said, also had a prolonged shelf life of up to four months in room temperature with its firmness and quality intact, compared with the 30-day shelf life of the regular tomato.

He said several farmers had also started planting new chilli species such as the Green Arrow and Bullet chillies, but on a small scale.

Suhaimi said Fama was keen to help farmers market their vegetables and fruits by adding value to them through the grading, packaging and labelling of the products.

He said it was also vital to ensure that only first generation seeds were used when replanting vegetables and fruits to maintain their quality and taste.

He noted that the quality of Malaysia’s dragon fruit had gone down due to unscrupulous individuals who used second or third generation seeds to mass-produce cheap, but poor quality fruits.

"Sadly, there is no proper control in terms of seed usage in our farms.

"We can learn a lot from China, which has imposed stringent regulations to protect its agriculture industry," he said.

Suhaimi said the Chinese Government had also banned the usage of 38 types of harmful and unregistered pesticides.

He noted that Malaysian farms should ascribe to good farming practices by inter-cropping farm land with different types of crops after each harvest to improve the soil’s nutrients and quality.

"Presently, our farm land are toiled with the same type of vegetable or fruit over and over again," he added. -- The Star