Coconut Smallholders Urged To Diversify Downstream Activities

Coconut Smallholders Urged To Diversify Downstream Activities

BAGAN DATOH, March 11 (Bernama) -- Coconut smallholders have been urged to diversify their downstream activities to generate higher income from their coconut harvest.

Deputy Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said to achieve the objective, the smallholders should learn modern farming techniques from the Malaysia Agriculture Research and Development Institute (Mardi) which had also produced ground-breaking researches in agriculture products.

"Besides coconut milk, products like kerisik (pounded fried coconut) and minyak kelapa dara (virgin coconut oil) are highly demanded in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.

"Local entrepreneurs must seize the opportunity to market the products by improving their packaging quality to be of international standard," he said when opening an agriculture products gathering centre costing RM52,000 at Kampung Sungai Nipah Darat here today.

Zahid who is also the Bagan Datoh Member of Parliament said by diversifying the products, the smallholders could free themselves from the shackle of poverty when the commodity price drops.

He also advised the smallholders to become Area Farmers Organisation (AFO) members to enable them to get the guidance and advice as well as loans from financial institutions.

Smallholders who had produced coconut based products should extend their network through smart partnership to widen their markets.

On the agriculture gathering centre, he said it had generated a revenue of about RM2 million and asked penghulus and other AFOs to set up such facilities as smallholders were showing keen interest to go into downstream activities.