KIULU: The Sabah Bumiputra Farmers and Stockbreeders Association (PETANAH) lauded and expressed full support for the state government’s plan to double padi yield in Tambunan by next year.
The plan, announced on November 10 by Dr. Jeffrey who is the Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, is to promote the Tambunan padi production by way of practices, improve irrigation systems and introduction of new padi varieties.
Dr. Jeffrey had said that, “Padi field farming in Tambunan needs to be improved. The people are committed to farming, but they need to learn and accept new varieties of high yield padi. The number of padi field farmers in the district who are doing double cropping is not enough. The main problem is the lack of proper irrigation, which makes double or triple cropping difficult, if not almost impossible.”
In supporting the plan, PETANAH’s president, Gaibin Ransoi, said in a statement here that Dr. Jeffrey is definitely taking a no-nonsense approach to significantly increase food production in the state which still depends a lot on imports for its rice needs alone.
“Obviously the new government had made the perfect choice in picking Dr. Jeffrey as a minister to be in charge of agriculture,” Gaibin said. “He is a true son of the soil who grew up in a padi farming family, and so has the true spirit and understanding of padi planting culture.”
Gaibin also said that Dr. Jeffrey’s announcement has become a new inspiration to Sabah farmer everywhere who now believe it is definitely a signal of better things to come for Sabah farmers.
“After Tambunan, the plan will surely be expanded to other padi planting districts like Tuaran, Keningau, Beluran, Papar, Kota Marudu, Kota Belud,” he said. “But we would also appeal that attention be also given by the ministry to support hill padi production, which has also been a very important practice by Momogun farmers since time immemorial.”
Gaibin explained that hill padi has an advantage in that it doesn’t need ploughing or irrigated water so it is less costly and it can also be done on double cropping.
Pledging full support, Gaibin, on behalf of the members of PETANAH, hopes to be given a role in forthcoming food production programs to be implemented by the ministry in the near future. He said, in this regard, PETANAH will be submitting to the ministry its own ideas and proposal on how to increase food yields in Sabah.-pr/BNN
