Where had all the farmers gone? Looks like, farmer can't make a decent living

Looking for 1)Planting Calender for Malaysia, preferably Sabah. 2) Sunflower Seeds. 3) Stevia cuttings

BTW had harvested our Thai Super sweet corn.

Either that, or too busy with preparing for the harvest season.

MrFarmer:
Planting calender for which crop? You could check with Jabatan Pertanian.

Which type of sunflower? Generic type, you can get it from supermarkets even. Specific type, you can try searching up ebay Malaysia. There's this company there, Nature Living, or Royal Living, something like that. Occasionally has some very interesting sunflower varieties, like big red sunflowers, or minature sunflowers. Usually sells only seeds.

Stevia cuttings, now that is a little more difficult. I know United Plantations produces some in their Jendarata Estate in Perak, and that Stevian Biotechnology (aka Pure Circle) in Enstek has some kind of contract farming agreement for stevia, but otherwise you'd probably need to get in touch with UPM-associated companies.

well my corn planting is on the way.

have been testing my products with the JackFruit tree and the result is good

will post pictures soon

long time no c, shifus...i wonder if the demand of corn in malaysia or asian countries would be as high as us? because we have rice here as our staple food. and, i see quite a lot products of lemongrass in the market now, the prices for grass itself is rising too, is the cultivation of the plant wide here?

love what you guys are doing..agriculture is one of my interest to invest and venture in..but im absolutely clueless about it..lol..my two issues are land and also buyer..for example..i read the thread and stuff..and i roughly get the idea of how to obtain a land..after i harvest, who can i sell it to?..that would be another one of my concern..is it easy to sell to a middle man or the government or the consumers directly?..etc etc!

One of the biggest issues faced by the world today is food security. There's simply not enough food to feed the growing population, especially when almost every emerging market is demanding more meat as part of their diet. And this increased demand for meat requires a lot of animal feed, which are mostly derived from corn meal, soy, agriculture residue etc. Roughly, an equal part of feed is required to gain an equal part of meat produce.

Corn demand in Malaysia as human food source will not be as high as in the US, but for animal feed, most definitely. China is investing heavily in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines to plant two crops: Rice and Corn. It is expected that they (China) will require massive amounts of corn as part of their animal feed blend.

---

Added on June 2, 2011, 9:31 amThere's always a way, one just need to find it. As with most other businesses, if you want to by-pass the middleman, you need networking with the right groups of people, and you need to ask the right questions.

To answer your question, it could be easy as pie, or it could be hard as hell; it really depends on what you are selling, when you sell it, and how you sell it. Right now, oil palm fruit bunches are hot items, and most people are willing to buy them, even under-ripe bunches are often accepted by some middlemen. I know of an old man who frequently walks around the Sabak Bernam-Teluk Intan coastal road with a jute bag. He collects the oil palm loose fruits that fall from the trucks transporting fruit bunches to the mills in the area. In a single day, he can easily collect up to RM50 worth of loose fruits, and the middlemen would gladly buy them from him. This is very different from not too long ago, when prices of CPO was going down the drain, no mill was willing to take the fruit bunches, even at the grower's cost price!

Actually, for one to participate in agriculture, one doesn't really need to own land, and nurture the crops themselves. It would be good of course, but as is often the case, not many people are blessed with such fortune. I'll give the example for oil palm and coconut.

One of the biggest problems faced by oil palm planters is the shortage of quality labor. I say quality, because quality is key in agriculture, and buyers/consumers are ruthless and unforgiving about low quality agriculture produce. That saying, harvesting the oil palm fruit bunches at the optimum ripeness standard and transporting them to the mill in time is crucial in ensuring low free fatty acid content in the resulting oil, low rancidity, and low losses in loose fruits. If one is able to provide such labor, most mid-sized to large plantations are keen to engage such entities, as contract harvesters. I'm not sure if the general practice has changed, but contract harvesters get about 20% of the FFB market price. Eg. if CPO prices are at RM3,000/mt, FFB prices are 20% of CPO prices (RM600/mt FFB), and contract harvesters' payment is about 20% of that (RM120) per metric ton of FFB harvested. If the plantation will give the contractor 40ha to harvest a month, and each hectare is able to produce 2.5 tons of FFB a month (about 30mt/ha/year), then in 1 year the contractor would have harvested 1,200mt of FFB, and earned RM144,000 in revenue.

Coconut is a lot more different. Yes, you could do contract harvesting from the larger plantations, but as far as I know, the contractor does not only provide the lent labor, but also purchases the coconuts that are harvested, at a fixed price. Example, a contractor contracts a 40ha field of high yielding coconuts. The plantations stipulates that each nut harvested by the contractor will be charged a fixed price of RM0.40 each for tender (drinking) nut, and RM0.18 for brown (old) nut. Given that the average yield performance of Malaysia's newer hybrid coconuts are about 15,000 nuts/ha/year (although better managed estates produce 25 to 30 thousand nuts/ha/year), and with proper agriculture practice, roughly 40% are brown nuts (60% tender nuts), the cost for the contractor would be RM144,000 + RM43,200 (RM187,200). Now I'm sure you guys know how much tender coconut sells for at restaurants and supermarkets; the contractor earns roughly 40% of those prices (less for hotels and certain restaurants). Considering the average price is around RM2.50, that would mean RM1.00 per coconut sold, or RM360,000 a year for tender nut. For brown nuts, two product can be obtained, which are the santan, and copra cake. Santan goes for about RM0.60 per 250ml, and 5 large brown nuts make 1L (RM2.40), so the revenue generated is RM115,000. The total revenue? RM475,200 in total. That's not inclusive of any revenue generated from selling the coconut fibre to nurseries, or the copra cake to animal feed producers.

I hope you can see from this lengthy write-up that participating in agriculture isn't as difficult, or as "dead beat" as it seems; nor is it difficult to find the right market with the right demand. It just takes a little more ingenuity, a little more resourcefulness, and some good marketing skills.

This post has been edited by Michael J.: Jun 2 2011, 09:31 AM

hoe mai god..MONEY MONEY MONEY!..but ofcourse takes time and also experience..haha..and its also fun..lol

nice to see this thread here
how bout oil palm?
any oil palm owner here?

Adrian:

I can tell you from first hand experience that managing and dealing with people, be it from top to bottom, isn't a walk in the park. More so in a plantation setting. Sometimes, external stakeholders are easier to deal with than those internally.

As for time, all businesses will demand significant investment of time on the part of participants. It is folly to believe that there exist businessess that will not demand one's time, and yet just keep on generating income. Got lar... usually con-jobs and scams.

About experience, yes I agree with you. A certain amount of experience is needed. I will share about this coconut contractor, who started work as a harvesting supervisor in a coconut plantation 20 years ago. He was in that job for 5 years, and if you are aware, plantation supervisors (non-executive) get paid pretty low (RM800 starting pay, to RM1,400 without overtime). He noticed that overtime was hard to come by, and with all the spare time he had in the evenings, he could do some side business to earn extra income. So he put his experience to good use. He approached the manager of the estate, made a business proposal to contract harvest the coconuts on the estate. He marketed the coconuts initially in Teluk Intan, to the towns people, clubs, hotels etc. The manager saw the resourcefulness of this chap, and (surprisingly) advised him to quit his supervisor job to focus on building the business. The manager even helped the chap gain contacts in KL and to market his coconuts there. 15 years fast-forward, and our friend owns a respectable coconut products factory, making stuff ranging from powdered santan, to packaged coconut milk, nata de coco, etc. which are marketed internationally.

I will agree that with passion, agriculture is indeed fun. When I was in the industry, I really enjoyed myself. Although a series of unfortunate events prompted me to leave the industry for a time, I'm still very much engaged in it, especially the science part. Even today, I still work closely with agriculture students, and I try to keep abreast with the latest developments in the crops of my interest.

Specimen A = Jackfruit tree that almost went dead because of too much water. Now trying to use my product to see its effectiveness



Specimen B = Jackfruit tree that almost went dead but now revived again after spraying my products. Note that the leaves are POINTING UP due to the products effectiveness

Got me worried Thank you Micheal. Shall check with Jabatan Pertanian (Sabah) when I go back to the farm.
Found Sunflower sweet via Lelong.com (QadhijahNaturalFarm), order, paid, waiting for delivery.
Those that are available from the Supermarket, normally will not germinate as those are processed.
Had tried raw groundnuts and sunflower, did not germinate. Tried (Chinese old) Ginger, these grew well.

Found Stevia (cutting) from a guy selling it at the bazaar, $25 per cutting, I feel it's too costly as it's new cutting put in a poly bag. Shall look for cheaper alternative.

Hi Chinyen, me no sifu , but just sold off some sweet corn @ $0.40 each, Lemon grass @ $1.00 per kilo.

New re-plant.

A row of lemongrass along the perimeter of the farm.

I guess it's your market segmentation. Who do you want to sell to? We sell to the middleman (or woman) to free us of the time to concentrate on our farming. Price is of course lower, but they have their role as well. We can also sell it at the local food bazaar. Had never sold to Government before. Anyway, we are new and our produce isn't that much to worry about this at the moment. First thing first, (as I'm new to farming) I'm worrying about planting first.

just gotten back from the farm.

update on the corn planting

Can harvest soon.

any palm oil plantation managers to recommend? i am about to clear 100k Ha...

i'm quite interested in agri and aqua culture. and it is interesting to read all valuable information here in this thread.

---

Added on June 23, 2011, 9:42 pmBy the way, i'm in the legal field, but am thinking of switching to a more satisfying career.

This post has been edited by jason1986: Jun 23 2011, 09:42 PM

Welcome Alaskanbunny, whow 100K Ha is very huge. Good luck on your project. Do update us on your progress.

---

Added on June 24, 2011, 6:47 pmWelcome Jason1986, good to have someone in the legal field background with us. Well, I'm not sure if the return is as good as in the legal field. I'm also new in farming and I don't see myself having a positive cash flow for the next 4 years. Shall be experimenting with some Tilapia fish soon.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jun 24 2011, 06:47 PM

Hi Mr Farmer, legal field does not pay well. that's one of the misconceptions.

Responsibilities are super high, workloads are heavy and yet the pecuniary remuneration and personal satisfaction is not there.

I'm keen on agro based business as I see that it is the future. Food prices are already sky rocketing and will definitely continue to rise.

I'm thinking of going to Sabah to start off, but much planning is needed and definitely a bumpy road ahead.

Just some updates

am planning to start off a Jackfruit Farm somewhere in Labu/Nilai/Mantin with some help from the Jab Pertanian off course...