KUCHING, Oct 16 -- Sarawak welcomes international expertise to work together to discover the potential of commercialisation of the state’s indigenous plants and crops, said State Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Datuk Seri Michael Manyin.
He said there was a lot of potential to commercialise indigenous plants and crops with medicinal value while the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre has also coded more then 10,000 indigenous plants and crops so far.
“But it is at the stage of coding only, not beyond that... So we hope with your knowledge and expertise you can work together with Sarawak Biodiversity Centre,” he said when officiating the two-day inaugural International Scientific Conference on Indigenous Crops 2018 (ISCIC2018) here today.
He also hoped that through this conference organised by Universiti Putra Malaysia, Bintulu campus (UPMKB), the potential of commercialising of local crops such as “dabai” or Sarawak olive and “terung asam” or Sarawak brinjal would be discovered.
He said there has to be empirical evidence of the potential and value of these crops in order to gain the confidence of the public to buy them.
Manyin also said the state government was also looking at working with the private sector to strengthen agriculture and agro-based activities to help small-scale farmers by introducing commercial and industrial-based farming.
