More help for smallholders under Bakun resettlement

The Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry has identified the setting up of a cooperative and building of farm roads as among the initiatives to help smallholders in the Sungai Asap resettlement area, Bakun, in Belaga.

Its minister, Bernard Dompok, said the setting up of the cooperative could facilitate in the dissemination of information from the relevant agencies to the smallholders.

This, he added, would enable the smallholders to manage their farms more effectively.

Through the cooperative, they would also be able to buy farm goods and other necessities n bulk, hence, would reduce their operation cost, he said at a gathering with the smallholders at the Uma Belor Leodian longhouse in Sungai Asap here yesterday.

He said there were also plans to build more farm roads in the area under the Tenth Malaysia Plan.

Dompok said many residents in the area had problems to develop their land because the sites were in the interior and had no road link.

He said he would discuss with Hulu Rajang Member of Parliament Billy Abit Joo for more information on areas in need of the farm roads.

Abit, in his speech earlier, said the smallholders were allotted about three acre each as part of the compensation for their resettlement in 1998 in the implementation of the Bakun hydro-electric project.

Many of the smallholders had developed their farms planting of cocoa, rubber, oil palm and black pepper, he added.

However, problems arose for them to transport their harvest because the farms were far from the longhouses and there was no road access, he added.

He said that under the resettlement programme, the state government had also built 15 longhouses to accommodate about 1,500 families.

- Bernama