Local urban farms hold key to food security
PETALING JAYA: Food security became a renewed concern at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic last year as movement restrictions and border closures affected supplies of fresh food.
Even before the pandemic, urban farms had been touted as one of the viable solutions to ensure better food security for the country.
One such farm is Urban Hijau in Taman Tun Dr Ismail in suburban Kuala Lumpur, run by Irfan Mohamed, Saqib Sheikh, Muneeb Yousuf and Mohd Nazzer.
They hope to close the distance between farm and consumer, guaranteeing all-around access to food.
“The food security issue was proven last year during the pandemic, when the borders were closed during the movement control order (MCO) and a lot of food was not able to enter the Klang Valley.
“That was when people actually started to reach out to us and asked if we gave out food aid because they knew people who had not seen fresh vegetables and fruits in three months,” Irfan told FMT.
He said that bringing organic food production closer to urban centres where many Malaysians lived was, therefore, important to cut the time and distance in the transport and distribution of good quality food.
Up to 30% of produce is wasted while in transit to shops and supermarkets. “By bringing food closer to the people, we are ensuring minimal loss, more freshness and higher quality,” Irfan said.
The farm produces between 300kg to 400kg of all types of crops every month for customers around the area.
Urban Hijau also gives out food aid once or twice a week, providing fresh organic produce to the low-income.
The vegetables are harvested in the morning and sent to food banks before lunchtime so that people in need get fresh food.
He said other food supplies received through food banks could be one to two weeks old, with some arriving rotten and inedible.
Although the benefits of urban farming are clear, there is poor follow-through for farming programmes, and many people still feel uninspired about getting started, he said.
“There is a lot of space in the Klang Valley to start farming, but people are not inspired to make a change. People are not being given the proper credit, proper remuneration, knowledge or training to stay through and persevere to establish (farming) in an urban space,” he said.
However, the pandemic has shown that it is crucial for the government to start thinking about bringing food closer to the community.
“We need 1,000 one-acre farms, not one 1,000-acre farm. If we start to have 1,000 one-acre farms, we will address a large proportion of the food security problems,” Irfan said.
“Each farm will then train other people who will then create other farms. We will no longer be worrying about importing food and we can even become a net exporter of food.”
A big challenge remains – the common assumption that urban farms require a lot of labour.
Attempting to prove this wrong, Federica Agnese and husband, Abdul Azim Che Abdul Rahim, of Ampang, started the Kebun Kemensah farm in their front garden as an experiment in January.
They said they had always wanted to start a sustainable local food production operation in the city. The project was also a test-bed for local community demand for organic produce.
Their small garden, covering 900 sq metres, produces a monthly harvest of 40kg to 50kg of three varieties of vegetables.
“It definitely needs attention, but not necessarily too much, as long as you have a system. Once you develop a system and a protocol, I think it’s quite easy to transfer it to other workers,” Federica said.
Azim said food in most commercial farms is produced using chemicals and pesticides that degrade the soil over time.
The couple now hopes that increasing concern over the quality of food and sustainability will lead to greater commercial interest in urban farming.
“I think there is great potential. Consumers can buy the product directly from the farm and they get to see how the food is produced. We definitely saw more interest in it since the MCO,” he said. - FMT
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