Redesign Sustainable Farming in the Johor Ecosystem

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The organic KF Farm in Johor Bharu, Malaysia has been identified by the Dutch government’s acting economic and agricultural representation in the ASEAN region as a potential benchmark and example project for organically grown vegetables and fruit by using Dutch smart farming techniques, practices and technologies.

KF Farm is established with the aim to deliver healthy, quality organic vegetables, using organic/sustainable methods, which are affordable to the community and to make organic farming more viable in order to influence farmers to practice the same and contribute to the community. KF farm is owned by KF Wholesale Sdn Bhd (KF) which is one of the leading suppliers of premium quality vegetables for Johor Bahru’s food service & retail industry having its operation outlet in Suppliers’ Mart (S’MART) Johor Bahru. S’MART is the first privatized cash ‘n’ carry farmers’ market in Malaysia since year 1999 and has the same management as KF Wholesale.

Last week, Aart van den Bos (Verbos) and myself paid a very successful visit to KF Farm. We conducted a “360-view” assessment and report on KF Farm’s business activities covering the entire value chain with the aim to define the current and desired situation (KF farm’s ambitions and priorities) and to propose an Improvement and Investment Program. The follow-up of this Quickscan will be a feasibility study. For this we are looking for Dutch companies that are interested in doing business in Malaysia and are able to contribute to organic/sustainable farming.

Crucial is the involvement of the Ministry of Agriculture of Malaysia at an early stage as the final aim is regional and national development of the sector (e.g. policy, regulations, subsidies and certification) as well as the involvement of local knowledge institutes for capacity building and research and development. Therefore, a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) including representatives of Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) and myGAP and myOrganic was setup in order to align our activities to government goals and to discuss opportunities for collaboration.

Herewith also many thanks to Louis Beijer (Counsellor for Agriculture | Accredited to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), the Dutch Embassy in Singapore (Robbin Mulder and Lisa Teo-van Kuijk), the Dutch Embassy in Malaysia (Li Huan) and KF Farm who supported our mission.