The Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry hopes to upgrade the Mardi Cameron Highlands Station, here into an Agro-Tourism Centre to attract local and foreign tourists.
Its minister, Datuk Seri Noh Omar said, the station, located two kilometres away from Tanah Rata, spans across 40 hectares of land suitable for cultivating flowers and fruits.
"We will request help from the Tourism Ministry to obtain funds for this purpose. Most of the trees here are evergreen like those in Europe because of the weather," he told reporters after launching Mardi's Meet-The-Customer Day at the Mardi Station, here Saturday.
He said the station received about 180,000 visitors each year and generates and income of RM1.3 million through various attractions offered including a strawberry farm, vegetables, flowers, tea museum, English garden, Information Technology Centre and reasonably priced English Cottage-style accommodation.
Earlier in his speech, Noh stated that fertigation technology should be widened in order to cultivate high value crops for the local and export market.
He said Mardi was currently active in promoting the technology to create a communications network between producers of technology and its users.
"This modern technology is necessary due to insufficient land and this way planting can be done surrounding the house. The agriculture sector is facing various challenges such as disease, labour and global climate change which affects the country's food production," he said.
He added that the technology was vital as the world was expected to experience a food crisis by 2050 following population growth.
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