FAMA wants to plant durian on endowment land

 

PORT DICKSON (Aug 26): The Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (FAMA) plans to cultivate durian on idle endowment land especially on the fringes of towns and isolated areas nationwide.

Its chairman Ishak Ismail said that, in this regard, he urged the state governments and state islamic religious councils to consider the aspiration in the effort to encourage more new planters, to simultaneously give added value to the endowment land itself.

‘’We want to collaborate with the state government or Islamic Religious Councils to ensure that the idle land can be developed with FAMA. The values of the idle land can be boosted by planting the Musang King durian variety.

‘’We want to turn the endowment land into agricultural sites run by new young planters. We bring the participants, help and guide them through the organisation of contract marketing to ensure they can work the land well.

‘’The durian produced will be marketed abroad whether through FAMA or other avenues to be provided,’’ he said after launching the closing of the Development of Musang King Upskilling Course at Dewan Reflesia, FAMA Training Institute here today.

According to Ishak, based on the data obtained, there were many idle endowment land in the country valued as much as RM58 billion, but were left idle.

Commenting further on the planting of Musang King, Ishak said that according to agricultural experts, a mature Musang King durian tree could produce 120 fruits a season and could bring a return of RM3,600 at RM20 a kilogramme.

The returns from the sale of Musang King durians were seen as much higher compared to other crops such as pineapples, coconuts, oil palm and rubber, he added.