Drop in coffee cultivation

Coffee is one of Sabah’s main commodities and has become synonymous to Tenom as it produces the most famous coffee brand among the locals, Kopi Tenom.

Rural Development Minister Datuk Radin Malleh said Tenom has 1,197 hectares of land cultivated with coffee, about half of the total land in the State planted with the commodity.

The total acreage in the State however, he said, had actually dropped by about 30 per cent since 2005 because most of the lands, once used for coffee farms, are now planted with either rubber trees or oil palms.

“Perhaps a special incentive for coffee smallholders can be introduced by the government to increase the size of coffee farms in the State,” he said during the Kopi Tenom Fest here, Friday.

Radin said since the 1950s, several entrepreneurs opened coffee businesses such as Fatt Choi and Yit Foh and their unique techniques of processing coffee beans successfully put Tenom on the map and made the sleepy town one of the country’s main coffee industry centres.

He anticipated that the Coffee Fest would help boost the industry in the district and become one of Tenom’s tourism products.

Meanwhile, Radin urged the people in the State to reject ideas of extremism and racism bent on disrupting the unity and harmony of the people.

“The State government would not hesitate to take action against these perpetrators,” he warned.

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