UPM

UPM wants to share Green Book programme with farmers and students

Monday June 13, 2011

By CALVIN JEMARANG
sarawakstar@thestar.com.my 

 

BINTULU: University Putra Malaysia (UPM) intends to expand its recently launched Green Book programme’s targets beyond the university boundary in the near future.

Prof Dr Japar Sidik Bujang Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Science said UPM, one of the five public universities in Malaysia awarded the ‘research university’ status by the government, felt its expertise, particulary in the field of agriculture and livestock, must be shared with the communities.

“For now, the Green Book programme is training its focus on univesity students only. We hope these students will then make the outreach to rural communities,” said Japar.

He said for UPM, to be able to to reach out to the rural communities was in tandem with the Government’s aspiration of improving farmers’ output through modern farming techniques.

Going green: Japar (left), Higher Education Deputy Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah (second from left) and Saifuddin’s wife Datin Norlin Shamsul Bahri (right) looking at students planting.

 

“We can help, we want to show rural communities more effective planting techniques and using materials that our experts have thoroughly researched,” he said.

Taking the example of maize cultivation, Japar said there were still many rural farmers who practised the technique of ‘punching holes’ to plant maize, which, according to him, is not effective.

“We discovered the corn they planted grew uneven — some low, high, small, large, another flowering, while others were ready to be harvested. They were not maturing at the same time, therefore not commercially friendly,” he said.

On the other hand, he said the growing technique developed by UPM would result in maize flowering, fruiting and ready to be harvested at the same period.

Japar also said that UPM would also reach out to students to get them attracted to courses run by UPM.

He said hopefully this would end the misperception that its graduates had less interesting working environment and career path.

“We will invite selected schools to visit our ‘Taman Universiti’ to see for themselves the learning environment and what we do. In that way we hope to get them to participate in our agricultural programmes,” he said.

Japar also said that UPM would expand the programme the Green Book to community colleges.

The Green Book programme is currently only being offered by UPM and is a compulsory course for its pre-Diploma, Diploma and Bachelor degree students. It carries a 2-credit hour and has six series, but students are only required to complete only four of the series.