Agro activity at Endau

Fresh fish landing at Endau LKIM Jetty, Mersing yesterday...so fresh!

Endau? Where is it?

Endau is a small town in North East Johore about 180 km from Johor Bahru. It was considered as Fishing Town where more than 117 vessel landing at about 15 jetty own by private and one jetty by LKIM. Most of the locals work in agriculture and service sector. I recently attend a meeting and manage to visits agriculture projects conducted by Mersing Agriculture District Office.

The first visit is to LKIM Jetty at 8.30 am and briefed by Mr Shukri as a PNK Manager. He said about 117 boat vessels landed in Sungai Endau (Both Johore side and Pahang side). The fisherman mostly used Pukat Tunda or Pukat harimau and must went outshore more than 12 nautica miles . One sea trip took about 7-8 days and landing period for 1-2 days. The collected fish put in a special boxes with grinded ice before distributed to Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Kuantan and as far as as Bukit Kayu Hitam and Singapore. Most of the boat owner was a tycoon (Chinese community) and according to Mr Shukri no one was Bumiputra even though license belong to bumi. This due to high operating cost up to more than 1.2 million do start business including buying big boat, engine, fishing tools and cost of fuel. According to Mr Shukri one trip may collect about RM 15,000- RM20,000 of fish and 50% were cost of fuel or maintenance the rest divided to boat owner (25%) and the boat captain (10%) and the rest divided to 5 members of boatman.

The second visit is to Agrobased Industry project by En Mahmud at Kg Simpang Penyabong, Endau. We served with 'Nasi Dagang" as our breakfast. According to En Zani KPPK Endau, the DOA provide training and provide a grant of "Dough Devider Mchine" to him last year. He produced about 1,200 - 1,500 unit pau daily using about 25 kg of flour. There was 9 variety of pau produced by Pak Mat including Ordinary Kacang Pau, Ayam Pau, Daging Pau, Stawberry Pau and others as posters nest. He sell at 70 sen per unit at Friday Market at Endau and retail. He plan to produce chilled pau next year with the advise of DOA's personnel. The group enjoyed to get 3 pieces of Pak Mat for free...

Coconut Replanting Program was one of the popular project in coastal peninsular Malaysia with MATAG Coconut Variety. We went to Kg Teluk Sari and Kg Tanjung Resang to see the 25 hectare of coconut planting program on Bris Soil (Rudua Series). It was previously an old coconut tree and some are bushes. The first seedling planted in September 2008 and there is so many difficulties occurred during initial stage. The most critical is to gather the land owners and convinced them to start the project. Only about 50% land owner was in Mersing District whereby the others stay outside such at Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur. Upon planting the most unwanted pests was monkey and wild boar. It damage more than 30% of the area and replanting was not happy ending story. The was 2 month drought in the project site and some trees was attacked by pests.

Next to coconut replanting project was a beautiful Tg Resang Challet and Camping site. The owner plant about 50 MATAG coconut as shade and young coconut used as coconuts drinks for tourist attraction. The beaches is very clean and facing Tioman Island and Sribuat Island. We are lucky to check the MATAG performance in this area whereby as we count there is 15-20 coconut nut in one bunch. The tree was only 2.5 years old and producing tremendous numbers of nuts. The owner thanks to DOA by introducing MATAG Coconut.She purchased about RM 80,00 per seedling 2 years ago from local seedling supplier.

Mushroom oyster project at Kg Triang Kecil by Pak Wahab ended our trip to KPPK Endau. He started the mushroom project 4 years ago without any assistant from anybody. Last year DOA provide him a special allocation under Meningkatkan Pelbagai Pendapatan Program for about RM 10,000 to purchase begging machine, steamed machine and some material for mushroom housing structure. He activity assisted by 2 local workers to fill the media bag about 4,000 - 5,000 daily. He purchase the inculcation media from Seremban at RM 3.50/ packed. Pak Wahab sell the fresh mushroom at Endau and Mersing area and Tg Gemok (Pahang) at RM 10.00/kg. With the premium price he can make a profit margin compare to retail price at Muar and Johor Bahru only RM 6.00-RM7.00.kg. He thanks to all DOA Officer who involved in his success story of producing oyster mushroom.

VISIT ENDAU AGRO....REMEMBER THE PREVIOUS AO'S...

I WAS SERVING THERE FOR 5 YEARS....

THERE IS POTENTIAL AGRO AT MERSING...

THANKS TO OUR CORLICK THERE!...

By,

M Anem

DOA Muar