Organic farmers in Penang who are looking for ways to improve their crop yield, can reach out to business start-up Ekebun. Aiming at encouraging more organic farming, the company uses data collected about organic farming that would benefit local farmers.
Founder Sim Xue Heng said that the company was established in June, but research had been ongoing for the past five years. “My family and I decided to operate an organic farm. It was not easy and we had to close down the operation. I then set up this business with my three co-founders, who are into programming, e-commerce, Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT).” One of these co-founders was Peter Loo, who has a background in computer science.
Sim said he was glad that the homestay project had allocated a plot of land for them to carry out research and development activities.
“We would love to collaborate with other farms as well. We approached several organic farms in Penang and it’s difficult to get them on board with the idea. It’s probably because it would take several years to collect the necessary data.”
Sim said that trade data of the agricultural sector between 2005 and 2017 from Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry revealed that Malaysia imported RM34.52 billion (€7.1 billion) worth of food, but exported RM21.01 billion (€4.3 billion) only.
“We believe this leads Malaysia to buy expensive food. One of the reasons is agricultural workers in Malaysia still practise traditional farming methods. They do not have enough exposure to new technology such as IoT and Big Data which is able to increase their production and lower their costs.”
Source: thestar.com.my