Hill padi farmers in Sarawak will soon be getting a free bag of fertiliser from the Government to increase their yield.
Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Alfred Jabu said the state had received RM14.6mil from the federal government to buy the fertiliser for the farmers.
“Each farming family involved in planting hill padi will get one 25kg bag of fertiliser free of charge,” he told a press conference at his office here on Friday.
“The idea is to increase the production of hill padi so as to lessen our dependency on buying rice from outside.”
There are some 88,000 hill padi farmers throughout the state.
Jabu said early batches of the fertiliser were expected to be distributed to the farmers starting this week.
On another matter, he said the Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) will pay dividends totalling RM52mil to 16,000 oil palm scheme participants this year.
“This is higher than the RM30.4mil paid last year,” he said, adding that it was Salcra’s biggest ever dividend payout.
He said Salcra had also set aside RM22mil to pay back state and federal government loans due this year as well as RM250,000 for various corporate social responsibility programmes.
These include donations of RM50,000 each to the Sarawak Association for the Welfare of Orphans and the Dayak Bidayuh National Association.
SOURCE: BY THE STAR-NOV 28,08
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