There is a fresh wind of hope blowing with four young Orang Asli men joining the farm on a training-cum-work programme. Suhaimi (27), Zamri (27), Haikal (17) and Panjang (15) aspire to start an organic farm of their own. Currently, these young men are paid an allowance of RM600/month.
“I was only earning about RM300/month tapping rubber on less than two acres of land,” said Suhaimi, the youngest son of Masenah, one of our woman farmers.
These young men have identified a piece of land, and if all goes well, in two months, they will be equipped and ready to start their own farm. These are early signs of replication as they are able to visibly see how working on an organic farm in a sustained manner offers them real hope.
Suhaimi and Haikal are happy with the training programme and are excited by the prospect of starting their own farm. “Working on our own farm allows us to remain with our wife and care for our children. We enjoy better income than what we have been doing,” they said.
The current eight farmers have taken on themselves the responsibility of training these four new trainees. Cooperation levels are noticeably good too.
It is also great that farm production is slowly ramping up. This week, we saw harvest increasing from from 60kgs (Monday) to 65kgs (Wednesday) and to 70kgs on Friday.
