ROTI JOHN is into vermiculture, you can refer to him.

Pros and cons up and down of earthworm and earthworm poo has been well described in this thread, hopefully you find the reading useful.

Note that if you able to produce high quality worm compost with vermiculture, it is quite a ready market out there!

Meanwhile, I am still looking to rent some cheap property to carry out my projects.

Should you be interested about further details, go thru my siggy

This post has been edited by rexis: Jun 20 2008, 08:56 AM

Perhaps I can try to look around my agroworld magazine library for any arowana or exotic fish breeding? I think I seen a few articles before but not too sure if they are in details.

Get back to u soon.

amirbashah,
its good to see you having something kicking and running there! Just remember, passion and perseverance. I seen your thread in FBI. Yaya, jumlah, berkebun, Janganlah asyik jam tiap tiap pagi aja.

ah_suknat,
hi! I am KK chai, Ranau is a nice place to stay, very few Sabahan as far sighted as you, most of them choose to chasing traffics in big city. Ended up trapped in the concrete forest, sth like myself.

There is a few things you need to pay attention to if you are farming in Sabah.
- The local demand is lower compare to City like KL, Peneng, Singapore.
- The big players there mostly large plantations with cash crops.

For a low demand market, it is unwise to plant large area of same crop, like 20 acres of banana or cabbage. Coz any oversupply means sending your money to landfill. Unless you are able to secure oversea demand like exporting them, but to meet international standard, more cost for packaging, QC, etc. Hence it is very important to diversify your crops, like plant at least a couple of high demand vege(like cabbage, sawi, chili, gourds, corn etc). But it is also very important to keep a sensible volume so you can directly sell them to a wholeseller. Of course, open up a stall in Gaya street will cut the middleman, but you cant sell all your vege like that isnt it?

Thou if possible, cut the middle man completely by opening up a dedicated vege shop in KK, do one dragon business, KK is a small place to pass info around so if you able to provide good vege, royal customers will come.

Since your dad is a farmer, it is even easier for you to kick start! Just listen to the old man

If your land is big enough, like >100 acres, then you can start thinking about cash crop, like cocoa, oil palm, etc.

mazda626,
Sori, not yet hv time to dig thru my library, perhaps you can find something here.

For your info, Arowana breeding business easily involved a couple of millions, other then the cost to purchase the daddy and mummy fish, the quipments, and also the security needed to protect your investment.

You aint going to let your arowana grow up in a mud pool aren't you?

But this is for a large scale breeder, I have a friend which her bf is breeding aquarium fish at a rented apartment. Of course you can up start as small business, all trees came from a tiny seed.

None the less, once you identify your direction, hold up on it!

This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 10 2008, 05:47 PM

Darkus, fyi, TS ParaOptical is keeping a pond or two of Soon Hock, perhaps he can offer you some guidance.

A quick comment, soon hock is predatory fish, it is very important to keep them well fed or they will start chewing each other. If I am not mistaken, you need to feed the fry some protozoa and then when they grow up big enough, you need to try to make they get used to fish feed. They prefer to eat living thing like small prawn, tadpoles, cacing, insect, etc.

Australian Barramundi = siakap? First time seen Jade perch, looks like huge supply of omega3. Perhaps you can enrich us with some fish info.

Cough, its Rexis.

This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 14 2008, 10:53 AM

Edited and added my previous post, I am sure ParaOptical is interested to talk to you.

Branding of the fish... a while ago I heard about a fish farm producing frozen red talapia in vacuum package and brand it as cherry fish. It seem like most people process talapia into fish fillet now.

- - -

Ah yes, in Sabah the "maize" chicken is very popular and highly priced, my grandmother is raising her own maize chicken. As the name implies, the chicken diet mainly made of maize aka corn.

In semenanjung here, whats popular is the "vege garden" chicken, which suppose to be chicken raised in the open rather then fully in cage. They cost is slightly cheaper then maize chicken in Sabah, also considered high price, and do not affect by the ceiling price issued by gov as they are not regular farm fed chicken.

I can't see any vege garden chicken available in Sabah, perhaps you can work some out

Maize chicken: very fat, yellowish skin, unique delicious chicken flavor, and tough meat texture.
Garden chicken: slightly fat, light yellow skin, chicken flavor without the farm chicken stink, tough meat texture.
Farm chicken: fat, pale skin, meat is soft and smelly.

This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 14 2008, 12:04 PM

np, Mazda626

Darkus, from the info I hv here(this is what I remember, i left the article at home):

Soon hock is carnivorous fish and they seldom swim around and not very fierce unless prey gets near them, they prefer to stay idle in cracks or bottom of the water. They can grow up to 60cm at 5-6kg.

Fry at 5 cm long should be fed with redworm and minced fish meal, this is to make them slowly adapt to artificial fish feed. Slowly apply sink type fish feed and monitor the feeding condition.

Survival rate can be expected to be around 80%.

Soon hock took about 1 year to reach marketable size ie 600gm. From other sources it mentioned that for best quality keep on feeding the soonhock for 2 years so they will have time to develop their tenderness sth like tat...

The article also mentioned about feeding method on other size soon hock and how many months to go into next stage, but since 5cm is roughly the size of the fish u get, heres the first hand info. If i hv time I will edit my post.

- - -

auchenmiao, what worm are you intended to breed? And what do you know and from where you heard about worm? Just trying to get an idea where to start.

Anyway, I believe this thread had covered several issues about virmiculture. Look for it.

This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 15 2008, 10:45 AM

heh, they are not simply "disappeared", people would not let such living gold bars swimming freely unattended.

Its a sad thing thou that wild Arowana has lost their natural habitat forever.

This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 18 2008, 03:37 PM

Market price? Easy, just visit the pasar pagi for the chicken stall, and then get a hint my calculating their difference with farm chicken in term of percentage. Then you will get an idea how much more you can get with kampong gai.

---

Added on August 8, 2008, 8:36 amFor whoever interested in agriculture business, please do pay a visit to MAHA 2008

Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang
11th-13th Aug 2008
10am-7pm

Refer official site for details.

This post has been edited by rexis: Aug 8 2008, 08:36 AM

How much did you bought the 1/2 acre of land for?

It depends, how is the road access, land condition, and the surrounding. 45k for a ranau land with cool weather, still ok i guess.

Here are the suggestions:
- At your own land, build some permenant structure like chicken hatchery, goat barn, mushroom hut, etc. Or if you prefered, dig some pond.
- At your own land, plant long term fruit trees like durian, rambutan, mangosteen, langsat, or if you prefered, jambu batu. Take note not to plant large tree too near your buildings like house, their root systems will damage flooring over years. Plant it at least 10m away. Small shrubs like jambu doesn't matter much thou.
- At your nearby land, they are not yours, but if they are vacant, you can plan to work out some vegetable farms there! Or use it as nursery for seedlings. Or anything temporary and can be easily moved away.

IMHO, 1/2 acre of land is not big enough for any commercial fruit tree farming, ie, do not meet scale of economy. Perhaps a high density chicken factory can produce a meaningful production to yield profit.

If you are not planning any serious income for your farm too soon. You can try to learn organic farming. It is a time consuming job. Plus, you have to look at the history of your land for organic farming, was it a farm or a natural forest before? Or was it just a vacant land? This is very important to understand how good the local ecosystem can sustain an organic farm.

The ideal should be some free range chicken under jambu batu trees, they help you out in weeding and manuring, while your jambu batu producing some nice organic fruits. Or you can think about a duck pond with jambu batu trees beside.

Then this will be more like a leisure personal garden which occasionally yield some side income.

If your aim is to get income or profit as soon as possible, then beside everything mentioned above, you utilize all the available land nearby for short term vegetable cropping, there is always demand for vegetable even thou you are bond to the low market price of vege crops. Short term fruits are recommended too like melons, etc.

Since your house is just next to it, there is a galaxy of activities you can do.

Anything particular in your mind before I start shooting into void?

This post has been edited by rexis: Aug 22 2008, 10:30 AM

You are not in KK? When do you plan to move back? That is so nice to move back i want to go back tooo...

Looking forward to visit your happy chicken!

Here is some density guide for kampung chicken:

For indoor intensive chicken pen:
- all chicken house indoor in a closed system for easy management.
- 12 chicken per m²
- Food and water is provided all day

For semi intensive chicken pen:
- other then the indoor pen, the is a fenced area for the chicken to move around for some sunlight and fresh air.
- chicken will return to sleep in pen at night.
- in pen 18 chicken per m²
- Food and water is provided all day

For free range chicken:
- the lowest density of all plan and the happiest chicken of all.
- 10,000 chicken per ha, which translate into about 4,000 chicken per acre of 2,000 chicken per half acre.
- chicken will return to sleep in pen at night.
- in pen 18 chicken per m²
- Food and water is provided all day in the pen

You should get ready your supplier of choice for starter, grower, and finisher.

Oh yes, since you mentioned the place has ponds and has been idle for 8 years, I guess you should do some preventive measure just in case some anaconda gulps all your chicks! My father has told me stories about how they trap anacondas back there, a big steel barrel buried in ground with the top part open and same level with the ground, bait like chicken or as my father mentioned "fat meat" is placed at the bottom of the barrel. Snakes will be unable to climb up the smooth wall if they are full. Take note that anacondas are protected species in Malaysia.

For fish, I think for the small area you have, there is not practical to raise cheap fish like talapia, unless talapia fetch higher price in Sabah. You can consdier higher value fish like haluan.

If you have the cash, why not just get the other half acre of the land? Consider take loan or something. I am very very much sure that when you fully work out your current farm nicely there, your neighbour will hike the land price 100% to 120k. When you are not utilizing the land yet, build a barn and keep a few goats and let them roam the idle area for natural food, you won't need to pay too much attension to them, just some barn cleaning, and for that extra bit of organic fertilizer!

This post has been edited by rexis: Aug 25 2008, 08:58 AM

You can usually buy it in chinese magazine shop, but not Popular.

Theres a grocery shop in Sec 17 has it, its among the shops where many people have lunch there, Sg Long has it, it is a stationary shop, the magazine lorry at Sg Long also has it.

Just pump in the pic here

Fyi, normally we are looking at RM1k monthly for normal vege farming. More is of course possible, just that this is a figure for your reference to show that if your farming is efficient or not.

Happy new year everybody, and welcome back for reviving this tread

Palm Oil vs Animal Feed, Imho, if you have good source of cheap raw material, as well as the recipe, Animal Feed is gonna beat Palm oil.

Animal feed, is mainly locally consumed, in fact, we need to import raw material to make animal feed, and the price of animal feed will directly affect all the meat industry in the country, it is something that on demand, why not? The palleting machine and large mixer would cost a considerable initial investment, not to mention the proper recipe of animal feed, technology, technique of how to process the grains and feed(it seem like a great deal of effort is made to prevent fungus).

Although palm oil is a little dim nowadays, please note that it is still a very important commodities, it is something that has a long term demand. Perhaps the price now is low, 18 months later, its gonna be a different story, people who gave up 18 months ago will be damn regrete.

However, our palm oil industry is pretty heavily taxed, first, the fruit are being taxed, then the mills being taxed, and then, the CPO being taxed as well, and finally you got taxed again by exporting them... it is considered pretty rare in agriculture industry as some countries like US actually subsidize their agriculture production.

What worm farming you want? They are all over the internet!

Or carefully dig thru this thread.

True, there are some assistane provided for new venturers, but for anybody who know nearly nothing about agriculture, its pretty confusing about where should you start with.

Read newspaper or find realty, purchase one.

Easier way is find an isolated corner, or TNB pillar, fence the whole place and start turning soil.

Felda only for bumiputera, furthermore, even if you are bumi, it is encouraged to be a little bit more independence, and it really means nothing to you even if you can get 10-20 acres of isolated land to "jaga" and know nothing about it.

They repeatedly touting "Pertanian adalah perniagaan", yeah rite, I give you a shop and a badge, and you think you are doing business. Business is something that involved actions, not just brain activity.

There is high demand for limau(those mamak stall use to make limau ais), easy to plant, but they are highly prone to disease.

The local green lemon is highly priced and have a pretty good demand too.

Read above reply, there is no free lunch in this world, even if there is any land to apply, you have to know which department to go to, lots of time to spare, careful enough not to disturb their afternoon teabreak, etetetetc.

Up to this point MOST of the small scale farmers in this country is farming on illegal land, a sad fact indeed. And they blame we are not utilizing their service and facility, sigh.

This post has been edited by rexis: Jan 22 2009, 12:00 PM

Ahh, its been a while.

Time flies like arrow, and fruit flies like banana.

Since our last leader who encouraging people to get into Pertanian. Our current PM has a new vision related to national unity.

But nonetheless whatever the leader say, agriculture is still the backbone of a country. Give some correct effort and you will surely earn your sweet harvest.

Although it involved open air under the sun hard work, it might not suit all the city and office dweller, but then, nowadays, a modern farm is a clean and comfortable place to work in. A greenhouse hydroponic farm don't even need to deal a lot with dirt, a mushroom hut is suitable to girl who hates sun, etc. Its like renovating a house, its up to how you would like to do it, and ultimately being able to be profitable, of course.

Talapia very fast can harvest, some 6 months can reach market size, so consider easier and quicker return.

And now they farming those 99.97% male talapia fish, can grow even faster and even size.

Not really into those decorative thing like goldfish or flower...

I am actually half a TS here, being a little distracted lately, anyhow you all are welcomed to ask things here.

But then, parapara is the one know better in aquaculture.

How is the worm market now? Still can fetch RM100/kg? I seen some calling price for RM50.

How is your cow feces well prepared? Dried? Composted? EM?

I went to a vermiculture course and this is their contact:
Fairos Agro Resources Sdn Bhd
03-3122 6041
It is located somewhere in Klang, if it is too far for you I think he has a student who built a worm farm in Kajang and can give you the contact.

Their ANC worm casting seem really even in quality and attractive texture, not those home grown worm compost that lack of care and quality.

I got a 1kg bag for RM3 for my little garden, it "activated" my cactus for a frenzy grow. Perhaps you can nego for less if take more.

Interesting, why would you need fruit flies for? Been done a bit of googling here, first time heard of it. What are you feeding them to? Why not use mealworms or crickets?

And why not you try to culture some DIY? Sound easy enough, all you need is a banana.

Its kinda late reply but anyway... IMHO

You are from agrotechnology background, you should know better then me about the agriculture-related companies if you are planning to climb the employee ladder. Be it plantations, fertilizer producer, cloning lab, R&D companies, etc, I am sure there is sufficient opportunities there for ya.

But then, you plan to work things out for yourself and wanted to start something out of your knowledge, then we are looking into setting up your own business. You must know very well what you are doing and have a clear plan in mind.


This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 11 2009, 12:16 AM

I must admit that the price you are offering is fair enough. Maybe not as cheap as RM50, or maybe some quality issue there, but prices surely came down quite a bit since it started.

Hi happy_gal,
Your concern is understandable. Doing business is all about getting out of the comfort zone and take risk with potentially high returns. And besides all the values and morals about being a successful businessman such as enthusiasm, honesty, hardworking, never give up, leadership, etc etc...

For first timers, it is recommended to find someone who has experience(of course, and willing to share) as partner, and always get your hands dirty in the field so you could master all the details. Otherwise, he has to be very sure about all the technical details as well as the connections: how do you get things in or out of your farm, where to get baby fish, where to buy their food, where do you sell them, etc.

While mixing with enthusiastic friends helps keep your interest high, it is also important to take one or two training course or do some farm visiting to get an idea about a fish farm. It looks nice on paper and dinner table, you might hate the water, dirt and sunshine.

We are talking about hundreds of thousands of investment here, if not millions, is his friend gonna fork out so much? Otherwise how is he plan to source his financial from? You?

Talapia demand is high. And fish farm is gotta be the trend as wild fish source is dwindling fast. So as a fast growing, omnivorous, easy to raise, large size fish like Talapia is considered fast and high return because you feed them with plant source protein feed(cheap), and grow fast.

How profitable is it is basically how experience you are in it, and how do you do it. Do you rely entirely on commercial fish feed? Or do you substitute some with agri by products like fermented rice bran? Tofu waste etc etc.

Of course, farming is not a get rich quick scheme, there gonna be hard times for the first few months or even first few years before the profitable harvest came in and make the business sustainable. Although the sky is the limit, but we are usually reaching it one step at a time, on a firm foundation.

Lastly, one must be able to accept failure, and believe in self. Keep it on, and you will success some day.


ps: this wikipedia pic appear so many times in magazine...

This post has been edited by rexis: Jul 14 2009, 12:34 AM

Good luck!

Not really keen on fish farming but do you have the kind of resource to raise the baby fish until marketable size?

And above, so the idea is to get a feel of fish farming first rather then hoping to one step to success. And more importantly, dont give up easily.

Yes, talapia is easy to breed, and can be harvested in as little as 6 months, and you are not even feeding them commercial fish feed, just fermented rice bran for most of the time. But of course, if you want them to grow until bigger size u need more time and better feed, but still only take less then a year.

Keli is even easier to breed, you not even using pond, just use poly tank enough.

This post has been edited by rexis: Dec 31 2009, 12:09 AM