Today I paid a visit to a farm owned and operated by my old school friend Patrick. It’s possibly the only farm in Sarawak that employs considerable mechanisation.
To make it more special, it is at the base of the karst mountain that hosts the Fairy Cave … a beautiful setting indeed. It’s about a 45 minute drive from Kuching to Bau, the town nearest there.
Patrick wasn’t born into agriculture … rather he had a very high-flying corporate job in Australia but having established himself he opted to retire to a different lifestyle back in Sarawak. Until now, agriculture is not an industry people go into … it’s something that people are born into … people are in agriculture because they have few other options.
As the song goes … “And on his farm he had some” … dogs (pets and working), goats, rice, corn, fish … and traditional medicinal herbs grown on contract as a feed for researching their curative properties (eg. for cancer).
His farming goes beyond selling the harvest. Rice is grown both as a food crop and for sale as seedlings. Some of his varieties allow three harvests per year instead of the usual two (wet padi) or one (dry padi).
He also has mechanised transplanters, combine harvesters, seed dryers etc. Apart from selling the harvest, he offers a service to local farmers for mechanised transplanting, harvesting etc. Work normally done by many people in one day can be done by machine in 1-2 hours.
Fingers crossed, this is going to bring Sarawak agriculture kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
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- Inside the Wind Cave … we’ve been told the Fairy Cave further down the road is better but we ran out of time.
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- Inside the Wind Cave … we’ve been told the Fairy Cave further down the road is better but we ran out of time.
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- Patrick and my sister-in-law on his John Deere with his two dogs in tow; the backdrop is the mountain that is home to the Fairy Cave.
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- My brother and family with Patrick.
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- My brother and niece and Patrick’s two gorgeous dogs.
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- By the river … it’s normally very clear but the heavy rain has caused some run-off into the river.
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- The dogs love the river.
