Hi all

Iam new to agriculture and aquaculture industry. Iam from Singapore and thinking of opening up a farm in Malaysia with some people.

Well actually someone else is looking for a land in Malaysia and he is interested in agriculture industry. He has a farm in Philippines and elsewhere with other people. Iam just starting to learn new things and this guy knows alot of things about planting stuff.

So Iam looking for land for lease, he said he wants to start with kelapa sawit. I have seen some ad online and somewhere else, but I do not know whether to trust them as I have some relatives who have been cheated when they are about to buy house in Johor. So can I get some recommendation from the trustworthy people here to lease land in Malaysia? How much is 1 acre cost?

Thanks

Hi Zyper, welcome to this forum. Welcome to Malaysia.

Investing in whatever business in a different country is always a big challenge. Business and Land code differs between country to country. Please proceed with great caution.

Do do a land search with the Land & Mine department once you had identify the land as this shall provide you with the status of the land, official owner, any caveats & etc. Do go through the proper channel to get things done officially.

Land prices differs greatly from location to location, land condition, size & etc. A good place to gauge shall be @ Mudah.com.

Enjoy your journey.

Welcome abroad...

careful when you go on buying land.
its more important to source for property agents that cover areas that you are interested to buy rather than simply going online. this is because there had been land scams where the land was sold over and over a few times...

what kind of farming are you planning to do ???

Oil palm is profitable provided you have a big land to do so. if too small it is just uneconomical...

Some problems with my Papaya. Have a couple of trees with this problem. Any idea?

Thanks for the reply MrFarmer & ParaOpticaL

Iam in IT line so Iam a little bit busy doing some projects and Iam surprise that some of you came from IT or Engineering background.

Well personally I hope that everything will sail smoothly this year and going to loan some land in Philippines to plant padi and corn.

Iam not sure whether foreigners is able to buy agriculture land in Malaysia because I have been told that we can't buy that kind of land, is this true??
I have read about the bumi and non bumi land. The guy that is going to invest in Johor wants to plant kelapa sawit but Iam not sure whether he wants to
plant something else. He wants to lease it but my Malaysian uncle and lecturer told me it is better to buy the land for planting purposes rather than leasing it but Iam not sure whether foreigners can buy the land.

So Iam currently looking for land in Johor but Iam open to elsewhere in Malaysia. Btw you guys did a great job doing the newsletter and maybe I can help with the design of it.

Sorry for the long absence. I have been busy with my research, and will be MIA intermittently.

Youtube is really and interesting place to look for amusing stuff on agriculture. Look up the link below on Langat Aquatech's high density catfish farming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGlIS-8QBgo

The video is old, but still quite impressive. The least dense tank contained 10,000 fishes, with a target weight of around 125g (8 fish per kg). That's a hell lot of fish for such a small tank. Going by the rate above, we're looking at 1,250kg of fish; @ retail value of RM5.00 per kg, that's about RM6,250 sitting there. Now the average growth rate of Clarias catfish to reach 125g is about 3-4 months, so that's about 3 cycles in a year. I believe that about 10 tanks can be house on say half acre space, with generators, shed house, etc. Therefore, 30 harvests of RM6,250 each = RM187,500.

Anyway, back to business.

MrFarmer:

The peck marks? Birds are attacking your papayas. They should be near ripe. The papayas, I mean.

As for Cavendish, yea, lots of process required to market the fella. This variety rarely ever does turn yellow on its own, unless almost rotten. It also doesn't ripe evenly, even after exposure to farnesene or carbide. You will need a cold room to achieve even ripening. But export market is very good. In Australia, they sell for about AUD$3.50 a kg off-peak (roughly RM13.00 here).

zypher:
Foreigners are permitted to purchase land in Malaysia. But I would suggest you get a good lawyer, aside from a good real estate negotiator. This is because not all land are designated for plantation-based agriculture, and there are some which actually specify what kind of crop is permitted (although it is usually ignored by the growers and the authorities). Also, some properties carry with them special clauses (eg. TOL land which is leased land from the government, land of limited statutes of ownership, native customary rights land etc.). You will need a good and honest lawyer to help you through this, especially in dealing with the government.



Anyway, it's been 2.5 months now since I've landed in Sarawak. I must say, Kuching+Samarahan is a pretty flat land. Very heavy clay in the higher elevations, and really swampy peat soils in the lower grounds. But overall, it is actually a pretty fertile land. Just the agronomic aspect need to be given more emphasis; noticed that agronomic practices are almost non-existent.

Also, checked out much of the wet markets around town. Aside from the usual stuff seen in Peninsular, there were a lot more other varieties of vege and fish being sold. It isn't often you find fiery Habanero chili peppers being sold in such abundance in one place, or huge Pacu (piranha) fish being traded eagerly. The variety of fish species, in particular really caught my attention. I believe that Sarawak (well at least Samarahan) has a good potential for freshwater aquaculture, as long as the downstream activities are also equally developed (eg. smoked catfish, pickled fish, etc.).

Sunlight hours in Sarawak is extremely long. I estimated about 6.5 hours of full sunshine hours here; but it may just be due to the time of the year. Weather patterns, however, is very volatile. It can be blistering hot for a moment, and then suddenly a massive thunderstorm will roll in. Might be tied to the lay of the land, and its located to the South China Sea. The mountain ranges fringing Kuching + Samarahan, in my opinion, sort of act as a funnel, channeling in the water vapour and trapping them over the two towns.

I have yet to really sample any local species for agriculture purposes, but I believe I may have found a potential catfish candidate to hybridize with the existing version of the hybrid to create a super hybrid of sorts. The current variety does grow very fast (reaches 1kg in 8-12 months), but apparently does not taste as good. Hopefully, by including more genetics of local species, the new hybrid will have better taste while retaining its high growth rate.

Ho Micheal, glad that you're back. Yes, having chicken problems, as neighbors (more than 4 sides) release their chickens, free ranging
Having lots of chicken pecks on the papaya as these are the solo varieties. Had bought lots of used sacks to cover up, but still having problem. Hope it'll out grow it as the trees grows higher.

MrFarmer:

Mmmm... maybe you can erect temporary fencing using whatever free materials lying around on your farm? Like short stout sticks inlaid in a conical shape around the trees?

On a different topic, what is the general opinion about keli aquaculture among forum members?


Now, I do have some thoughts about keli aquaculture. Although most who go into freshwater aquaculture prefer tilapia, I strongly believe that keli has some very good fundamentals that would allow it to overtake tilapia soon.

For one, most keli species (of the genus Clarias) are known for fast growth when using the right feed. It is well documented that they can grow from 2g (1 week old hatchlings about 1" long) to 130g within 90-100 days. Secondly, they can thrive even under extreme densities, and they can breathe air. This means more fish mass per unit area.

The downside, of course, is that most cultured keli species are not very good at converting plant proteins into muscle mass. Most fish feeds today are derived from soy-based proteins, mixed with very little fish meal. Fish that are more herbivorous, such as tilapia will obviously thrive on such feed, and hence the perception that keli does not perform as well as tilapia.

But here's the good news: keli can easily digest and convert insect protein into muscle mass. What more, as insect protein contains very little fat and carbohydrates, the keli is less likely to produce fatty tissue compared to current feed formulations. The question of course then, is who the heck produces insect proteins for fish feed?

Para, correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point before Rexis was talking about large scale production of darkling beetles and larvae for feed protein production. Any idea what came out of his venture?

Aside from insect protein fish feeds, the other aspect is genetic improvement of the keli itself. I have been studying some of the African and Asian walking catfish literatures, and although the largests members of the family (100cm lengths, 6kg average weights) feed primarily on fish, there are also many other members of the family that feed largely on insects, arthropods, etc. and are still able to attain sizes of up to 50cm or more, with weights of 1kg++. I believe that even if the aquaculturist were to domesticate these other lesser known keli without the help of hybridization, it is quite possible to improve catfish productivity while reducing costs. If hybridization is used, the right genetic combination would produce a fish that is not strongly dependent on animal protein, but can metabolize cheap insect protein and even plant proteins.

Are using used bags, which cost $1 each and we most probably need 2 to fully cover the fruits. Problem is that access is difficult, we need to unwrap, check for harvest, disease, do spraying, then wrap it back. Labor intensive, if doing this for a large numbers of trees. Hope this shall be a temporary problem and hopefully as it grows higher, the chicken wouldn't peck.

MrFarmer:

Haaa..... that's pretty darn expensive man....! Well, technically, chickens don't climb trees. But birds like orioles and mynahs can fly. You don't have those birds at your place, right? Even if you do, I don't think it is likely to have dozens or even hundreds of them around; so should be ok.

Mmm.... one solution is to put up nets. It is costly, but if you're in it for the long term, then is works out well.

The other way is to put up noise deterrents. String up tin cans with something like a stone inside, and link them to a miniature windmill like that. As the wind blows, it will jinggle the string of "noisemakers", and hopefully this will scare them chickens/birds away.

Yet another way: Rear lots of territorial birds, like geese. But make sure they are used to you, or they will chase you also. Geese are known to be quite a bully towards other farm animals, especially ducks and chickens, and they are extermely protective of their home territory. Turkeys are also quite aggressive, especially the black ones. In both species, mated pairs are best, as the males are very protective of the female, who is in turn protective of her nesting ground.

Going on about the Clarias catfish aquaculture...

I did a bit of research on supply-demand, and I'm quite surprised by the absolute demand for the fish, and the low supply occuring.

Just a few examples of the kind of demand I've found:
> 1 wholesaler in KL is looking for a supplier that is able to produce 2mt of catfish a day; price offered is RM3/kg. Date of tender is 8 March 2013.

> 1 wholesaler in Sungai Buloh, looking for supplier of catfish, 50kg/day or 300kg a week. Offer price is RM3/kg, size requirement is ~200g per fish. Date of tender is 21 Feb 2013. Guy cites that he himself is a catfish producer, but is unable to fulfill the overwhelming demand.

And these are just a few to name. There are many more wholesalers looking for this fish.

But the main issue, I've found, is that those who culture the catfish using pellets are complaining that costs are too high to support the tender prices of RM3/kg. Those that have been successful in cost control seem to be using animal proteins such as chicken guts, fish heads etc. as feed. However, consumers are complaining that such fish have high fat content, and don't taste as good.

There's also this group that's producing "organic" catfish. How it figures as "organic" is beyond me, but they are able to market the fish wholesale at about RM5/kg, while retail prices are around RM7/kg.

A general cost breakdown of a "hobby" catfish aquaculture set:
> N150 polytank x 3 (i.e. 200 gallon x 3)= RM615
> Water treatment chemicals = RM30
> Fish feed = RM50 a barrel
> Fish fry = RM0.15 x 2000 = RM300
> Net = RM10
> PVC Pipes = RM 1 x 20m = RM20
> Aquarium pump = RM27
> Utility supply = RM60 (for 3 months)
TOTAL COSTS: RM1,112

Assuming 10% death rate of stocked fish, and 6 fish to a kilo, the setup above gives 1,800 fish or 300kg total weight in 3 months @ RM3/kg. This equates to RM900. Less fixed costs of RM400 (for fries, feed, and utility supply), the nett returns is RM500 every cycle.

Now a N150 tank has an area of about 2.2 square meters, so 3 tanks will take up about 7 square meters (roughly 24 square feet). So an average sized backyard of about 300 square feet would hold about 12 sets (36 tanks). If assuming one does all sets in 3-month cycles, that's on average RM6,000 nett a cycle, or about RM2,000 a month. Not too bad for 300 square feet.

And in terms of production, 12 sets will produce about 3.6mt a cycle (1.2mt/month, or 300kg/week, or about 50kg/day). Not a figure which could become a hard-sell, especially if you find wholesalers like I've noted above. Of if you aren't too fussy about selling it yourself, you could market it to groups of vendors at wetmarkets. Might get better prices too.

This post has been edited by Michael J.: Mar 17 2013, 11:39 PM

I'm not an actual Clarias catfish aquaculturist. From my observance and my clients feedback...

RM3/kg is consider low. Last heard 2 weeks ago, one middleman of mine offering RM3.60/kg for abt 4-6 fish per kg size. He take in any amount you have to offer atm. Another, volume not that huge, but demand is about 400kg/month offering at RM4/kg

If you use pelleted feed for the fish, you confirm to lose money 100% sure. Per bag of pellet feed cost abt RM50. If you aim to produce 1 kg of fish, assuming Feed Conversion Rate of 2.0, you will need 2 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of fish. Assuming 1kg pellet feed cost RM2.50/kg, so 2kg=RM5.00. Feed alone will cost RM5!
Let say excellent FCR of 1.5, your feed cost alone will still at RM2.50x1.5= RM3.75!
The ex-farm price of the fish itself that made cause pelleted feed not feasible.

So 1kg let say about 5 fish, that means fry alone will cost you RM0.15x5=RM0.60. The fry can get RM0.07-RM0.10 if you look around.

Fry cost + Pellet feed(FCR 1.5) = RM4.35 > sales of RM3.60

One I know that succeed uses high quality pelleted feed at fry level to boost fish health. Then uses all sorts of junks they cn find to adult.

Thanks for the info.
Will do an experiment on my next batch of cavendish.

M_Century:

Yes, you are right. RM3/kg is indeed very low. RM4/kg is very good!

As I understand it, that's exactly how a lot of clarias producers do it. They grow the young fish using high grade feed up to a certain age, and then switch to using chicken intestines, fish gut and head, or trash fish. Then to improve the taste and quality of the final crop, they put them into cement tanks to detox a few days.

Yes, catfish fry can get at RM0.07-RM0.10 a piece, or even cheaper too. The higher price was based on RM0.10 a piece, plus transportation costs which averaged out to RM0.05 a piece. If more had been bought, the transport cost would of course adjust downwards as well. Even if self collect also need to calculate the fuel cost ma... haa.....

But that aside, based on your client feedback, what's the general concensus about clarias farming? Margins still not as good as tilapia farming? This is assuming those that use other methods than pellet feeds.

poks:
Great. Below is a write-up by DOA Sarawak on production and ripening of Cavendish bananas.

http://www.doa.sarawak.gov.my/modules/web/...rint.php?id=507

You will need to get ethylene, which is available in liquid form. As for determining ripeness standard, there is a chart at the bottom of the page to assist you in this.

Thanks for the info again..
but mine does not look like that.
max fruit bunch is about 4 to 5 bunches.
i believe Mr Farmer's fruit will also be the same.
most probably lack of care..

anyway, thanks again..

We usually 'limit' the numbers of hands per bunch from 6 to 8 hands. I find this producing better harvest in my farm. For the Cavendish the top ranges from about 15 onwards bananas.

Am not sure if I'm getting it wrong, but the last hands should have more than 5 bananas.

poks:

Don't worry, not all banana planting materials are the same. It really depends on the mother tree from which the clones were selected. The most important thing is the quality and weight of the final product.

The "dwarf" Cavendish I used to handle could produce up to 12 bunches on a single stalk, but in practice, like Mr Farmer noted, it is best to maintain about half this number only. For one, the lower combs produce very few fingers which are invariably small and "low grade" by market standards; secondly, most Malaysians prefer medium sized sweet bananas like Berangan, or mildly sourish ones like Rastali. In other words, there's not much of a market for off-grade Cavendish locally except in areas populated with Western expatriates.


Now there is a need to clarify something about the Cavendish banana. There are actually many forms of the Cavendish, with two being particularly important in Malaysia. The one depicted at the DOA website is the Williams strain. It grows to about 6.5 feet tall, and bears a very heavy crop (i.e. the 12 combs mentioned earlier). The other strain is known as the Grand Nain. This is a monster of a plant, reaching about 8 feet tall. It produces less combs per stalk, but each finger is far bigger and larger than the Williams.

In the past, the Montel used to be quite popular here. But you rarely see it planted these days. Still, people associate the Montel with any Cavendish banana produced nowadays.

Recently, there has also been a sharp importation of Cavendish strains from overseas, notably from China and Vietnam. There are also those that have been genetically improved, such as the Novaria. The most recent strain, the Valery, is a very disease tolerant Cavendish.

In this attachement, you can see the Williams and the Novaria Cavendish, aside from other banan cultivars:

http://www.unitedplantations.com/Products/...gress161008.pdf

hi everyone..i'm kinda new to this thread, it's my first post here anyway..hehe..but i've read every knowledge here from the very beginning, and my interest are towards chilli fertigation & fish farming, particularly using RAS technique

well straight to the point then. From what bro M_century quoted regarding pellet feed for fish, have anyone here heard of the 'production of cost-effective fish diet using chicken intestine meal'? perhaps sifu Michael J can shed some light on this, as this is a product formulation by the guys over at DOF.

The interesting thing is that they quoted the cost to formulate the feed is around rm1.33/kg, with achieved FCR of 1.1

Wow, the coconuts & banana looks good. Something to look forward when I expand

Some of our Cavendish.