Farm mechanisation, fertilisation package for sweet potato cultivation can increase crop yield

BACHOK: Farm mechanisation and fertilisation package for sweet potato cultivation is capable of improving productivity, saving labour cost, increasing farm-scale crop yield and reducing dependence on imports.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Industries Datuk Seri Ahmad Hamzah said by adopting the package, the overall cost of operations can be reduced up to 50 per cent compared to the cost of manual operations.

He said the package involves organic fertiliser spreaders, ridge-making machines, planting machines, pesticide and weed-control spraying machines, motorised sprayers and spraying drones, as well as pruning machines and crop harvesters.

"The Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) has taken proactive steps to overcome the issue of insufficient supply of tubers, especially sweet potatoes, to meet domestic demand, while reducing the country's sweet potato imports.

"This is among MARDI's proactive measures to promote agricultural innovations and technologies for the targetted group so as to boost the production of agricultural products and open up the export market."

Ahmad said this to reporters after the launch of the Sweet Potato Farm Mechanisation and Fertilisation Package at the MARDI Research Centre of Excellence here today, which was also attended by MARDI director-general Datuk Dr Mohamad Zabawi Abdul Ghani.

Elaborating, Ahmad said the formulation of a quality sweet potato production system using an efficient cultivation system without soil or known as fertigation cultivation can increase plant growth and increase the yield of sweet potatoes compared to conventional planting methods.

"Manual methods of cultivating sweet potatoes require a lot of manpower and high costs. These are factors for the limited cultivation area and low productivity.

"Therefore, this (mechanisation) technology can be used as an alternative for agricultural entrepreneurs and farmers to increase the production of their sweet potato crops while also being able to increase their income," he added.

-- BERNAMA