Uggah: Freeing rural folk from poverty one of Agriculture Dept’s greatest achievements

KUCHING (July 14): Freeing the rural folk from the shackles of poverty is one of the greatest achievements of the Department of Agriculture Sarawak (DoA) in its 100 years of history, said Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

The Deputy Premier said today, people in rural areas are far more better off and enjoyed a higher standard of living.

“They can afford their own cars and other vehicles, reside in concrete longhouses and even own houses in towns and cities.

“This to me is an indicator of the positive changes brought about to them,” he said when met after officiating the closing of Spaoh Agrofest in Spaoh, Betong today.

Joining him were Food Industry, Commodity, and Regional Development Minister Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom, Deputy Minister of Food Industry, Commodity, and Regional Development Datuk Martin Ben and Betong MP Dr Richard Rapu.

Uggah, who is Bukit Saban assemblyman, pointed out that in the olden days, people did not have enough to eat, despite growing their own crops, and that malnutrition was a common issue.

“All these have disappeared, and our focus now is to increase their income,” he said.

He said these positive changes were made possible due to cultivation of commercial crops such as cocoa, rubber, pepper and oil palm.

“They have tremendously improved the quality of life of the people and have helped farmers generate a higher income.

He also said that the way forward in the agriculture sector was to embrace modern agriculture by leveraging on new high technology like the Internet of Things (IoT), modern farming concepts like hydroponics and fertilisation, application of artificial intelligence (AI), hybrid seeds and so forth.

“These are essential tools for us to develop further and be more successful,” he said.

Uggah said the state government has been very satisfied with the DoA for being able to utilise and synchronise modern agricultural methods to benefit the people.

“At the same time, this will attract more youths to participate in agriculture especially when getting them to become farmers have been a very big challenge for us.

“When they can see the many benefits of modern agriculture and the potential of generating good income, I am sure they will be willing to take up this field as their career,” he said.

Dr Rundi, in echoing Uggah, said modern agriculture had contributed towards eradicating poverty, be it directly or indirectly.

“In modern agriculture, we do not rely solely on manual labour like before as there is the usage of new technologies.

“We don’t even need to worry about soil suitability as we can build greenhouses and so on.

“Agriculture is not easy, but it is also not really difficult. We can make it easy by going for relevant new technologies that are used in agriculturally advanced countries such as Taiwan, New Zealand or Australia,” he said.

He also stressed that the main focus now was to change the mindset of the youth in taking up agriculture.

“We must do away with traditional farming with its meagre production and aim for commercial farming where we can generate good income or profit,” said Dr Rundi.