MARDI was given the opportunity for the 3rd time to work with Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for Asian and the Pacific (FFTC) to jointly organize the Regional Workshop on Protected Cultivation of High-Value Crops under Changing Climate Conditions which was successfully held from 12-14 September 2017 in MARDI Serdang. The workshop brought together 50 participants from local and abroad (Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and the Netherlands). The 3 days programme covered 2 days Workshop and 1 day Technical Visit.
The workshop gathered international experts in the area of protected cultivation to update the current status of various technological components of protected cultivation of high-value crops such as designing of structures for tropical and sub-tropical agro-climatic conditions, micro-environmental control, and ideal modules on irrigation, integrated crop management, and integrated pest management. Besides, this was also to look at transition pathways and associated requirements towards establishing protected cultivation, and cooperation in the sector to move towards market-based pricing in order to reflect improved products and innovation.
The outcomes of the workshop is hope to give some enlightment to all relevant parties to address major issues namely technical feasibility of different types of protected cultivation, economic benefits for the growers, food quality and safety for the consumers as well as environmental protection. There are lots of information sharing among the participating countries that will be of great benefit.
For this programme, Malaysia was represented by two scientists from MARDI (Ir Mat Sharif bin Ismail, Principal Scientist of Engineering Research Centre and Ms Farahzety bt Abdul Mutalib-Senior Scientist of Horticulture Research Centre). Ir Mat Sharif was given the honour to present a Position Paper entitled “Design Optimization of Greenhouse Environment in Tropical Climate using Specific Air Space Stratification Technique” whilst Ms Farahzety represented Malaysia as a Country Report Presenter with the paper titled “Protected Cultivation Technologies of Vegetable Production in Malaysia”. Participation from Malaysia also came from ministries (MOA and MOSTI), Department of Agriculture (DOA), universities (UPM and UTM) and private agency (Enza Zaden Sdn Bhd).
Apart from the workshop, participants were brought to visit Green World Genetics Sdn Bhd (GWG) in Rawang, which the company has strong focus on research and development of tropical hybrid seeds as well as improvement of agricultural produce. The second location was Control Environment Mushroom House at Engineering Research Centre, MARDI Serdang where the participants were introduced to the technology of high value mushroom production under controlled environment with application of IOT (Internet of Things), developed by MARDI.
The workshop was inaugurated by the Secretary General of Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry, YBhg Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Bakar. The opening ceremony was also attended by YBrs Dr Mohamad Roff bin Mohd Noor, Deputy Director General of MARDI and Dr Kuo-Ching Lin, Director of FFTC.
Thank you very much to the dedicated team from MARDI, led by Mr Zolkafli Aris (Director of Engineering Research Centre), assisted by other centres (CC, HR, BE, ES, PB and AM) for making this event a success.
– by Nur Aida Binti Mohd Padzil, International Networking Programme, Corporate Communication & Quality Centre – MARDI
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