KUALA PILAH: A total of RM4.18 million has been allocated to the Negeri Sembilan Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (Risda) this year to successfully develop the rubber productivity improvement programme.
Negeri Sembilan senior exco Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias said the programme includes rubber productivity incentive scheme totalling RM2.19 million, rubber productivity improvement initiative (RM1.3 million), marketing infrastructure facility (RM491,000), and latex incentive scheme (RM195,671).
“Rubber is a continuous long-term income, they (smallholders) can get daily, weekly and monthly income if they do it themselves, in fact, can rake in better income if they develop rubber (plantations) compared with other plants such as durian.
“The government is always monitoring/examining the smallholders’ income, the floor price of (scrap) rubber is RM2.70 per kilogramme (kg) currently, but the government is now discussing how to help the smallholders by increasing the price slightly, which will be announced later,” he told reporters.
Jalaluddin who is also state Rural Development, Plantation and Commodities Action Committee chairman said this after officiating the Rubber Productivity Improvement Movement (GPPG), which was also attended by Risda deputy director-general (development) Ahmad Zainal Abdullah today.
Jalaluddin said the rubber planted areas in Negeri Sembilan amounted to 76,769 hectares (ha), out of which 85 per cent or 65,257ha are mature plantations while the rest are young rubber pantations.
He said Risda also provides 21 scrap collection depots and three latex collection depots to facilitate the marketing of rubber products for the smallholders collectively as well as enabling to cut the marketing chain which would generate the best income for them.
He also hoped to create a hub for food production in the state including to bring together agricultural products by Risda entrepreneurs while helping in terms of marketing.
On GPPC, he said it is implemented to broaden information on the latest assistance and initiatives for smallholders to return to cultivate rubber estates and subsequently generate better returns for them.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Zainal said Risda is always committed to ensuring that more than 500,000ha of uncultivated or abandoned estates out of one million ha of planted areas state-wide are developed through various initiatives.
“It (uncultivated plantations) is a matter taken seriously by Risda as the leader in driving rubber smallholders development nationwide. Among others, this is because the rubber planters are already old which makes it difficult for them to cultivate their plantations, besides the price issue.
“Hence, we have to find other alternatives for new rubber tappers, if they don’t want to do this, we will arrange for related companies, find tappers, and devise a group planting scheme...we don’t want smallholders to sell individually but make group sales,” he said.
Even though the rubber price is a huge challenge at present, he hoped smallholders would continue to develop rubber plantations, more so as it is one of the crops that is still given free assistance by the government.
“Rubber production functions as subsistence farming or long-term investment. This sector has continuous demand from rubber-based industries, and ultimately can increase the country’s revenue,” he said.
Ahmad Zainal said the public can apply to get rubber replanting assistance with a plantation area as low as only 0.1ha.-Bernama
