Ministry targets making state net food exporter

SIBU: The Ministry of Food Industry, Commodities and Regional Development is committed to achieving the target of making Sarawak a net exporter of food by the year 2030.
It intends to do this by transforming and sustaining agriculture and the rural economy in Sarawak through modernisation and commercialisation.
Its Deputy Minister Martin Ben said this is the mission of his ministry.
“In this connection,my ministry under the 12th Malaysia Plan (RMK12) has allocated RM4 million to carry out the rural ICT (Information and Communication Technology) training and development project which involves five main programmes,” he said.
He was speaking at the closing of the Sustainable Modern Agriculture through Rural Technopreneurship Programme (SMART) at the University of Technology Sarawak (UTS) grounds here Wednesday (Aug 30).
The programme organised by the ministry and handled by UTS ran from July 3 to Aug 30, and was attended by 12 participants from various regions of Sarawak.
According to Martin who is Kedup assemblyman, the rural ICT training and development project which involves five main programmes are Rural Training and Digital; Rural Human Capital Development Training; Smart Farming; School Smart Farming (for rural school); and SMART.
“This year, we aim to implement more than 26 training series and are expected to benefit nearly 800 participants,” he said.
He hoped that the participants will be able to use the knowledge gained to venture into the agro-food or agricultural sector.
Deputy vice chancellor of UTS, Prof Ir Dr Mohd Shahril Osman was among those present.