Over the year, we had talks a lot o
n the impact of climate change towards vegetable production but very few people can understand what we means.
In May 2010, the hot weather plus heavy rain in the afternoon had damage most of the leafy vegetable in Hulu Yam, product reduce by more than 50%. It struck the market so much that most leafy vegetable wholesalers can not reach their supply, some even faced big financial difficulties in the month, retail price of leafy vegetable shot up to RM4.00-5.00/kg from RM2.00/kg due to shortages.
Vegetables don’t grow on that particular month is because all the vegetables had been heated by very hot sun light, and the soil is hot too. When it rain in the afternoon, the rain water is heated by the hot soil and “cooked” the vegetables. Most vegetables can not adapt to the rapid weather changes and “rotten”.
We later found out this similar weather situation also struck the cabbages of Cameron Highlands, the green chili of Perak and the red chili of Jahor, we belief more crops should had been affected.
We later visited a farm in Senai, saw 110 acres of red chili in bad shape with very low production but no disease found.
In principles “greater concentrations of CO2 generally result in higher photosynthesis rates and may also reduce water losses from plants. Photosynthesis is enhanced when additional carbon is available for assimilation and so crop yields generally rise”.
But it doesn’t apply to the crops in the month of May 2010 in
The impact of climate warming had changed our strategy to build the green house for organic and sustainable farming. Mr Choo Kok Hing, the Managing Director of Hulu Yam Fresh Sdn Bhd, suggested fixing ventilation system to reduce heat in the house, we estimate the temperature inside the green house is above 5 °C higher than outside.
Electricity supply must be connected for the system to works, hence we had to delay the project
(wrote on 6/08/2010)
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