Let us grow food on the land, Perak farmers plead with developers

PETALING JAYA – A group of vegetable and livestock farmers have pleaded with developers LBS Bina Group Berhad to allow them to continue cultivating some 101ha of land in Kg Baru Changkat Kinding, Perak, which is slated to be developed into a housing project.

The 38 farmers, in a memorandum handed to LBS Bina earlier today, pleaded for the company to postpone their development plans, citing the current food shortage crisis as enough reason to allow them leeway and continue cultivating the land for another decade.

“This is not the right time to convert food-producing land to housing projects. Please give us, the 38 farmers (who) are tilling this land, 10-year leases to continue producing food for the nation.

“We are willing to pay a reasonable rent for the use of this land,” read an excerpt from their memorandum.

The farmers said vegetables, tubers, corn, and even fish are among the items cultivated on the 101ha of land, imploring LBS Bina to exercise their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to hold off the project and allow the agricultural cultivation to continue.

“We do realise that the returns LBS Bina will get from renting this land to us will be much lower than the earnings from property development. 

“But food insecurity is a real and present problem. And many ordinary Malaysian citizens are already suffering from the rising prices of food.

“We hope you can convince your LBA Group board members to exercise CSR and enter into a land leasing agreement with us,” they wrote.

The memorandum was received by LBS Bina’s general manager Loh Yin Hui who said there were no assurances that could be offered at this time.

“I have to speak with the upper management first,” he said when met at LBS Bina’s headquarters here.

Also present at the handing over was Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) chairperson Dr Michael Jeyakumar, who said the farmers were only pleading for some leniency for the sake of their own livelihoods while being able to aid in the national food shortage issue.

“At a time like this, with food shortages happening, I do not think they should go ahead with the housing project and instead allow these farmers to continue growing their crops.

“Some of them have been farming on that land since before the war, during the time of their grandfathers, so I think it is important that we also take that and the food security situation into consideration,” he said.

Also detailed within the farmers’ memorandum was a notice issued by the Ipoh Land and District office to several of them on May 18, 2022, informing them of a supposed breach of Section 425 of the National Land Code.

The notice also gave them 14-days to vacate the land or face fines up to RM500,000 or imprisonment no longer than five years.

However, the farmers are disputing the validity of the notice, pointing out that land which they have been farming has been alienated and sold to an LBS Bina subsidiary, Generasi Simbolik Sdn Bhd in 2007.

The farmers said it was with the help of Jeyakumar that they came to learn that Section 425 only applies to state-owned land.

“As the land we are on has been alienated to Generasi Simbolik, Section 425 does not apply here,” they wrote.

They claimed that a day after receiving the notice, a meeting was arranged between the farmers and a representative from LBS Bina who then offered them RM9,000 per acre.

“We actually prefer to continue farming at this site, but because we felt there was no alternative and were afraid that the land office would follow through with their Section 425 notice and evict us forcibly, we said at that meeting, that we would be prepared to move out if paid RM15,000 per acre,” read their memorandum.

It was learnt that no follow-up offers were made to the farmers following the meeting, sparking today’s memorandum handing over.

A letter ventilating similar grouses was also sent to the Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Saarani Mohamad on May 30, who has yet to respond to the matter. – The Vibes, June 8, 2022.