KUCHING: Smart Farming on Native Customary Rights (NCR) land is slowly gaining interest among Sarawakians.About 3,000 people, mostly natives, have attended courses on the farming method organised by DLT Institute over the past two years.
The institute’s founder Dr Elli Luhat said some of them had started practising it on a small scale.
He said the institute, through its DLT Plantation Sdn Bhd subsidiary had taken the lead in smart farming with a pilot project here. Recently, DLT Plantation signed a joint venture agreement with Kuala Lumpur-based Ruebbn Enterprise.
“Smart farming is a subject of today. Since its introduction, we have received enquiries even from businessmen overseas,” he said. He said that Ruebbn Enterprise was the investor while DLT Plantation provided the land and managed the project. Elli said that DLT Institute was willing to work with NCR landowners in joint ventures under a profit-sharing concept. He said that smart farming was a modern farming method that worked on the elements of nature, economics and social balance.
This method came about after he did eight years of research and development on various crops, he added. “I focus on two crops and an aquaculture activity that can generate high returns,” he said. He said that jatropha and gaharu were two crops worth venturing into. Jatropha was the crop of the next century as it was a substitute to fossil fuel while gaharu had been dubbed as green gold, he added.
A 4ha jatropha farm can generate RM3,000 a month after two years while 0.4ha of gaharu can generate income of RM1.8mil after seven years. To maximise land use, he recommended the rearing of the empurau fish (Bornean Masheer), which had been dubbed as a prized table fish due to its excellent taste. A kg of empurau costs between RM400 and RM450.
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