SERIAN: The Sarawak Government wants to make greater use of its e-Tani profiling system to ensure agricultural assistance is channelled according to farmers’ actual activities and needs.
Food Industry, Commodity and Regional Development (M-FICORD) Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom, said the profiling system enabled the government to identify each farmer’s agricultural portfolio, allowing inputs and equipment to be matched with the crops or livestock they were actively involved in.
He said the information would help ensure assistance reached the right recipients while preventing wastage of government resources.
“If a farmer is involved in fish farming, we provide assistance related to fish farming. If they are involved in oil palm or vegetables, then the assistance should correspond to those activities.
“We need to know what each farmer is doing. Through the e-Tani profile, we can identify their focus and provide the appropriate agricultural inputs,” he said when officiating the Serian Agrofest 2026 here today.
Dr Rundi said there had been instances where agricultural inputs were distributed to an entire village or longhouse even though only a small number of farmers required them.
He stressed that agricultural inputs must be targeted at the appropriate recipients.
“I have seen this myself. Only two or three people in a longhouse were involved in fish farming, but fish feed was distributed to the whole longhouse.
“Some of it became unusable or did not even reach its destination. That is a waste of government funds,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Rundi said the Agriculture Department must move away from a “business as usual” approach, stressing that its key performance indicator (KPI), together with that of the ministry, was to improve the livelihoods of farmers.
He said many farmers remained in the B40 income group, and the ministry’s role was to help transform the sector into one that generated higher and more sustainable incomes.
“The KPI of the Agriculture Department, including myself and the ministry, is to change the lives of our farmers.
“They are still largely in the B40 group. We must not wait for others to change our situation.
“We have to improve ourselves, while the government, the ministry and the department must continue finding ways to make farming easier and more rewarding,” he added.
