I have learnt many lessons and gained an immense amount of knowledge and experience in developing my farm. To the faint-hearted, this adventure is not for you. It tests your patience, your endurance and your faith. I approach the development as I would with any project - using project management techniques including having a project plan with resources and deliverables defined.
To start with, finding the right piece of land is key. Many were surprised at the piece of land that I chose and considered that I paid too much for it but in the end, people began to understand. I chose a land that was the last remaining jungle around other "kebun". This land has a land grant dating to 1908 but in the last over 40 years, had not been worked. It was last a paddy field but all traces of this was gone when I got it. Tarzan would have a wonderful time on the land :). Key things that I looked at which in the end made the land cheaper overall was the fact that it already had a tarred road access, electricity and ability to obtain clean, fresh water. Sometimes when people buy a piece of land because it is cheap, they forget these 3 items. The cost of having a road access to your land can run in the hundreds of thousands of ringgit, and sometime, it is just to have it built with gravel stones - no tar. Hence a land bought at RM 40K per acre can in a blink of an eye become RM 140K per acre and you still do not have the electricity and water! When some people realized this, they began to see that I am not stupid for paying more than RM 40K per acre for land that was a jungle because at the end of the day, it not only costs less but also speeded up the time of development.
What does someone from IT and Telco background know about farming? Very little but that did not stop me. Life is a continuous learning exercise so I started to learn. I didn't go to a university or take any formal training. What I did was to visit and learn from practitioners from all over the country. There is a lot of knowledge that is not in books - they are a good reference but in reality, there are so many factors that can impact that is learnt through experience and not found in books. I have to admit that I do have a collection of books covering a wide range of related topics. They are mainly localized since after all, I am living in Malaysia and not England or U.S.A. or Australia.
Nothing beats taking the theory and knowledge and putting it into practice. It is a never-ending discovery process. What may work on another farm may not work on mine due to various reasons. It is a continuous refinement process - making adjustments as I go along. When things do not go as I expect, when my patience is tried, I take a deep breathe and refocus and deal with the challenge. I do not view it as a failure but as an opportunity to learn and improve. Farming is for the positive-minded, open to challenge people.
Being a Muslim, farming is also an opportunity to be a better Muslim. Everyday I am amazed by Allah s.w.t. creations and power. It makes me feel blessed that Allah s.w.t has given me this opportunity. I am given the opportunity to produce affordable quality, pesticide-free, halal food, for myself, family, friends and customers. It makes me appreciate life more and gives me an opportunity to serve my fellow Muslims. Although I am not there yet, insyAllah, it will provide me with good income as well as activity as I grow older till the day that I die.
Farming requires passion. You have to love farming as it has its ups and downs. Farming requires commitment. You have to be committed as it is not an 8-hour in-out job. Farming requires faith. You have to have faith as there will always be challenges. Farming requires principles. You have to have principles or you will not be able to do it right. Farming requires brains. You must use your brains to plan, address issues, learn and a whole other multitude of activities. Thus, never under-estimate the farmer.
I studied the layout of the land, trying to preserve its good quality top soil, any plants or trees that are beneficial to humans and utilizing the natural stream-bed contour to create a fish pond.
The fish are fed the fish pellets as supplement - there is tiny river shrimp, small fish and plants that they feast on so should the pellets become unavailable, the impact is very minimal. My principle is to feed the fish what it would normally eat so chicken innards, human excrement and dead animals are a no-no. The other key element is clean water which I pipe from a natural, clean source. These factors keep my pond from becoming a cess pool with a stinky odor. Since I have the option to be selective, I only eat fresh water fish from my pond and it tastes great. I refuse to eat store-bought fresh water fish as it tends to have a smell as well as a muddy taste.
Having a farm also enables me to indulge in my other interest, herbs for well-being. I am constantly on the lookout for plants or trees to add to my collection. I have started producing two types of teas: misai kucing tea and kemangi or lemon basil tea. I regularly drink these two types of tea for health maintenance.
As a rule, I will taste-test all the produce from the farm before I sell them. A maxim that I live by: You only "feed" other people what you would eat yourself. It also gave me the opportunity to test out recipes cooked with herbs as condiments - learning the recipes that our ancestors used.
The cost of food is ever rising. Our government continue to subsidize certain basic food items. You will find more and more imported fruits and vegetables as well as other imported food produce in the markets and supermarkets - items that can be grown and produced in Malaysia but often costs less than Malaysian produce. One wonders why? My personal experience in getting my produce to the consumer direct at our version of the farmer's market exposed to me the bureaucratic barriers. This alone can be a deterrent for the farmer in selling his produce direct to consumers. I was fortunate to find a "friendly" location. This gave me an opportunity to sell fresh produce direct from the farm thus making Friday and Saturday extremely busy days, preparing for the Sunday morning market.
For me, being able to come in direct contact with my customers was important. It provided me with the ability to obtain uncensored feedback from customer, provide an insight to customer preferences as well as real people's buying strength. This activity also gave me an insight to the ignorance of some Malaysian's and the stereotypes held namely people involved in farming are uneducated and cannot speak proper Bahasa Malaysia let alone English. They also tend to look down on farmers so I have a great time surprising them. I enjoy the social interaction and it gives me great satisfaction when I have resellers of my produce at the same market and when the customers themselves promote my produce to other customers. It also enables me to get the most income from my produce
It is still a long road to when the farm turns a profit but I have faith that with perseverance and hard work with Allah s.w.t. blessing, the farm will succeed.
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