5/16/2023 0 Comments Sarawak pepper![]() Locally, the crop currently sustains more than 67,000 farming families and households, providing them with employment and income.Īlthough the majority of pepper farmers in the state are those from indigenous communities aided by the Ministry, the Sarawak pepper story is very much a Chinese immigrant story – one of trials, tribulations, and perseverance. The prominence of pepper may have peaked under the British Rajah rule in the 1900s when the Borneo Company streamlined the pepper trade, but the seeds were planted close to three centuries back by the early Chinese settlers.įast forward to the 21st century, and pepper remains one of the state’s biggest foreign exchange earners, producing 95% of Malaysia’s pepper and maintaining the country as the Top 5 pepper-producing nations of the world. ![]() Instead of silvery tin ore, the Chinese in Sarawak were harvesting a precious element of a different kind – pepper. “We need to put these rules in place and improve our enforcement as I have received complaints from farmers that MPB refused to buy from them,” he said, adding that MPB storage capacity throughout the state is adequate to keep the stocks.The story of pepper in Kuching is not much different to the one of early Chinese settlers in Peninsular Malaysia, with the main difference here being the commodity in question. Meanwhile MPB Chairman Larry Sng Wei Shien said MPB may not longer buy pepper from middlemen but directly from farmers to help ease their burden. Kok said the International Pepper Community, an inter-governmental organisation of pepper producing countries, forecast that pepper prices would increase in two or three years’ time. She said MPB could collaborate with local universities on a study to improve the quality of Sarawak pepper and stem diseases affecting pepper vines. Hence, Kok said MPB needed to hold a brainstorming session to re-look at its role, including whether it should be involved in buying the commodity, and chart a new direction for the Sarawak pepper industry. “Besides this, some people have sold selling our pepper seedlings to a neighbouring country when we shouldn’t have allowed that to happen,” she said. ![]() Meanwhile, Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok blamed imports of low quality pepper from Vietnam by local importers for the sharp fall in the prices as it had affected demand for local pepper even though it was refuted to be the best in the world. He said hence, the state government would provide such assistance to the pepper farmers starting from next year to lighten their burden.Ĭalling on the MPB to buy pepper directly from the farmers and pay them higher than the prices offered by middlemen, Uggah said he received complaints there were instances that the MPB refused to buy the commodity directly from farmers. Uggah said he had written to the Ministry of Finance asking the federal government to provide subsidies similar to that of the fishermen and rubber smallholders, but it was not included in the recent federal budget. On the contrary, he said the ministry and MPB should assist pepper farmers in Sarawak to enable them to maintain their farms until the prices are stable. Uggah, who was former Primary Industry and Commodities Minister, said it is not advisable for the Primary Industries Ministry and Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB) to tell farmers to plant more pepper when the price of the commodity is so low while the operational costs are high. “Many pepper farmers in Sarawak have abandoned their farms due to very low pepper prices against high costs of farm maintenance, fertilizers and pesticides,” he told a Town Hall Session with the stakeholders and pepper industry players here last night.īlack pepper now fetches RM7 per kg while white pepper RM15 per kg compare with more than RM60 per kg for white pepper and RM40 for black pepper two years ago. He said pepper farming has changed the life of the people in the rural areas of the state for the better over the past 10 years, but the drastic drop in the price of commodity off late has affected their livelihood. KUCHING: Some 30,000 pepper farmers in Sarawak are feeling the chill due to falling prices of the commodity, Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah said. ![]()
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