Kenaf

Kenaf Plant No Longer A Cheap Agriculture Raw Material, Says Chin

By M. Saraswathi and Mahanum Aziz

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 (Bernama) -- Kenaf, a plant of the hibiscus family, can no
longer be considered a cheap agriculture raw material, Plantation Industries and
Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said.

Its stem produces a coarser fibre on the outer layer and a finer one in the core.
The plant can grow to 1.5-3.5 metres and has a long history of cultivation for its
fibre in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, parts of Africa, and to a small extent, South-
East Europe.

He said although earlier research centred on kenaf for animal feed, the ministry
has identified and prioritised the bio-composite sector with applications in the
building industry, car components, furniture and food packaging.

"Apart from the growing trend to go green, it will allow us to link kenaf prices to
petroleum prices as kenaf is a potential substitute for petroleum-based plastic
raw materials and high carbon footprint artificial fibres (glass fibre and plasticbased
fibres)," he said in an interview with Bernama.

Hence, he said, the ministry aimed to develop kenaf into a new sustainable
source of growth to diversify Malaysia's commodity sector and ensure that it
fulfilled the economic, social and environmental development agenda.

"The ministry has identified kenaf as a potential crop to replace tobacco,
especially on the Beach Ridges Interspersed with Swales (BRIS) soil along the East
Coast of Peninsular Malaysia where the major tobacco growing areas are
located.

"If the plant is well taken care of by using some level of fertiliser, it can grow
profusely in sandy soil found in Kelantan, Terengganu, some parts of Pahang as
well as Johor," he said.

Chin said the shift would be a great help for tobacco farmers as they would be
less competitive once the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) Free
Trade Agreement took effect in 2010.

"Currently, the tobacco farmers are given a guaranteed price. A majority of
them will not be able produce tobacco leaves competitive enough for the
industry to buy from them as compared to other Asean countries," he said.
Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (upstream) and
Universiti Pertaninan Malaysia (downstream), together with a number of other
related agencies, spearheaded earlier research on kenaf under the auspices of
National Economic Action Council.

The National Tobacco Board (NTB) worked closely with these two institutions and
other research and development institutions like Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Standards & Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia and Forest Research Institute
of Malaysia as well the East Coast Economic Region Development Council
(ECERDC) and the private sector.

He said the result of such close collaboration among these parties was the
formulation of East Coast Economic Region (ECER) Kenaf Master Plan, a joint
master plan with NTB to develop 10,000 hectares of kenaf in the BRIS soil under
ECER.

Chin said this also involved the identification of four anchor companies to
collaborate with NTB and ECERDC to spearhead the initial commercialisation of
kenaf with products ranging from bio-composites, insulators and natural fibres.

He, however, declined to disclose the names of the anchor companies.

Chin said there were initial reluctance and lack of confidence by the tobacco
farmers as kenaf was a new crop and foreign to most of them.

He said the approach taken by the NTB was to develop demonstration farms
and to undertake verification trials with the farmers.

"An integral part of this approach is to site processing factories in the growing
areas to provide the confidence of a marketing channel in the local community.

"As kenaf is less lucrative than tobacco growing, maximum mechanisation to
reduce the drudgery of manual farming and to increase incomes through larger
scale farming is crucial," he said.

Kenaf growing, he said, was not so demanding and the crop was less sensitive to
weather and this was also a plus point to attract farmers operating in a
challenging agro-ecological environment like the BRIS soil.

"In 2007, we had 92 farmers planting 285ha of kenaf in Kelantan/Trengganu for
core and fibre, while in Kedah/Perlis we had 68 farmers planting 152ha for kenaf
seeds.

"Kedah and Perlis have been identified as suitable regions for seed garden under
the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) and the NTB has earmarked
these two states to produce quality kenaf seeds for the country.

"This year the number is expected to increase to 250 farmers planting 1,200ha of
kenaf in Kelantan/Terengganu for the four anchor companies, while another 130
farmers will be planting 260ha for kenaf seeds in Kedah/Perlis.

"They will be the core and model farmers for additional plantings in the future.

As the industry expands, then it can go beyond the ECER to other states, which
have suitable land for kenaf," he said.

Chin said kenaf could be grown by any farmers, not necessarily in the ECER
region alone.

"The setting up of processing plant through the identified anchor companies is
very important to give the farmers the confidence of being able to market their
products. Efforts to increase yields and reduce cost through mechanisation will
also make kenaf an attractive crop," he said.

Kenaf, he said, could be harvested every five months.

"This will ensure a whole year income and one such cropping system proposed
by an anchor company is a kenaf with corn cropping system to support output
of cattle feed.

"The inclusion of a suitable food crop in the annual cropping system will be an
additional incentive for the farmers to participate," he said.

Chin said the other approach to attract farmers to kenaf was to move away
from the traditional buyer-seller relationship of contract farming system, and
replace it with the "contract farming plus" system where the farmers were
partners instead of mere raw material sellers in the supply chain.

"This will ensure the farmers derive additional benefits from value adding,
employment in the processing activities and profits from downstream activities.

"In return they will be committed to their buyer partners in ensuring adequate
supply of quality kenaf. As kenaf is a blue ocean industry not constrained by
traditional producers, it is easier to encourage the downstream players to adopt
this win-win approach," he said.

He said tax incentives and grants could be provided to further encourage it and
it was heartening to note that some of the anchor companies were positively
pursuing this approach in their business plans.

"Finally there is a need to develop the support services to assist the farmers and
these include specifications as well as price structures to ensure a fair marketing
system for all," he said.

-- BERNAMA