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Sarawak is explor­ing the use of the Design-Buil­d­Op­er­ate-Trans­fer (DBOT) method in the padi industry to boost rice pro­duc­tion in the state, said Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom.

The Food Industry, Com­mod­ity and Regional Devel­op­ment Min­is­ter said his min­istry is pro­pos­ing the approach, which could help develop idle land and improve over­all padi cul­tiv­a­tion infra­struc­ture.

Accord­ing to Dr Rundi, a sim­ilar concept imple­men­ted in Sam­bas, Indone­sia has suc­cess­fully pro­duced up to three mil­lion met­ric tonnes of rice annu­ally.

Under the DBOT concept, investors or private entit­ies would design, build, and oper­ate padi cul­tiv­a­tion facil­it­ies, includ­ing devel­op­ing unused land, before own­er­ship is even­tu­ally trans­ferred back to farm­ers or landown­ers.

“We have sev­eral altern­at­ives. First, investors may be allowed to lease the facil­it­ies. Second, if neces­sary, the gov­ern­ment can pur­chase the facil­it­ies as the infra­struc­ture is needed.

“Once an agree­ment is reached between landown­ers and investors, a formal agree­ment will be signed, includ­ing the oper­a­tional period before the

facil­it­ies are handed back to the landown­ers,” he said in a state­ment fol­low­ing a work­ing visit to the Skim Paya Pay­ang Tubih in Serian on Feb 16.

Dr Rundi added that his min­istry, together with the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture,

would act as facil­it­at­ors to ensure no party incurs losses and that a win-win situ­ation is achieved.

“If landown­ers are cap­able, the facil­it­ies can be handed over to them to man­age on their own, but not for sale,” he said.

Accom­pa­ny­ing him dur­ing the visit to Skim Paya Pay­ang Tubih were his deputy Datuk Mar­tin Ben, Tebedu assembly­man Dr Simon Sin­ang Bada, Agri­cul­ture Depart­ment dir­ector Dominic Chung­gat, and Serian Res­id­ent Car­oline Cleo­phas Joseph.

Source : pressreader