Breaking new ground with temperate greens
Published on: Saturday, December 27, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: When you see semi temperate salad vegetables on sale in local supermarkets or served in hotels and restaurants here these days, it is very likely to have been grown locally. Not imported from overseas or even from Cameron Highlands in the peninsula.This is because there is now a farm in the State, set up by entrepreneur engineer-turned organic farmer Ooi Say Tuan, which produces these salad greens to cater to the Sabah market."Actually not many people know about us because we are new still in the market. The reason we are doing it is because nobody in the State is producing salad vegetables. With the rising tourism industry, we need someone to do it and that's why we started doing it.
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"With the fast growing tourism industry in the State, it is important not to be too dependant on imports. This is because if there is a shortage somewhere then they may decide not to send to you, which will result in a shortage. So it's important to be self sufficient." According to Ooi, he produces in his farm temperate salad vegetables such as iceberg, green coral, red coral, butterhead romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and capsicum, among others. "Yes, we are the main supplier for these salad vegetables and we are on standby to supply every day. We also produce other vegetables such as fresh western herbs including sage, oregano and rosemary, chives, parsley, leeks, water cress, red spinace and even Japanese sweet potato, Japanese cucumbers and Korean bell peppers.
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"We have our 50-acre farm in Gunung Emas in upper Moyog. We first started with our organic tomatoes which was proven to be successful before venturing into other types of vegetables. We are producing every month about 2,000kg of such vegetables.According to Ooi, one of the challenges they faced this year was an oversupply of such greens.
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"We have more than enough to supply the local market, but the main problem is capacity as Sabah's market is not big to begin with. Sometime the excess supply was thrown away and even turned into organic fertilisers. We are of course marketing also to Brunei and Sarawak," he said.He added that one of the reasons for this is that the local suppliers were still importing salad greens from the peninsula and overseas."In response we have decided to sell our salad vegetables cheaper as we also want to open up the local market and promote a healthy eating habit by encouraging the public to eat organic salad vegetables as a healthy diet option. "We hope more people will be aware that consuming organic salad vegetables is good for them as they contains a lot of antioxidants, amino acid and minerals."Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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