KIULU: An accidental stumble of mulberry seedling during a visit to the weekly tamu in Penampang back in 2002, proved to be Marius Samin's winning find.
The Kampung Tudan farmer has been trying his luck with planting strawberries and apples at his orchard previously, but failed in reaping viable returns.
"When I found the seedling at Donggongon market, I was curious about it and brought it home to try planting it.
"Over the years I did more research on the mulberry plant, including through the Internet and what we can do with it," he said when met at his orchard at the village, located about one hour from Donggongon.
Somehow, the chilly weather at the hilly remote village agrees with the multiple fruit species, which thrived compared to strawberries and apples.
Marius said he heard of others trying to plant mulberry but did not worked well probably due to the hot weather in the flat geography.
Today, the first or mother plant stands tall along 320 trees at his one-acre (0.4 hectare) land, as the 37-year-old become the pioneer of mulberry planting at his village.
Marius achieved another first when he started making wine from the mulberry fruit, believed to be the first such effort in Sabah.
"I have done trial and error to perfect the recipe... I let others taste before deciding on final mixture,” he said, adding that while he has three staff manning the orchard and harvesting the fruits, it was a one-man show for him in terms of wine-processing.
This is because while the wine-making procedure is based on traditional method inspired by local wine-making of the Dusun tribe, Marius wants to keep the recipe a secret.
The result was a smooth and fruity taste wine, similar to a dessert or sweet wine with an alcohol content of seven per cent.
“I initially started mulberry wine back in 2008 an up until 2014, I was only selling it around here and by the roadside stalls.
“It was when Kiulu assemblyman Datuk Joniston Bangkuai became the Sabah Tourism Board chairman did he helped me brought it outside and commercialised the CanaC Mulberry Wine brand,” explained Marius.
While Marius said there is no fixed production as it is based on orders like during Kaamatan (Harvest festival) and functions, he said about 200 bottles were produced last year with an increase expected this year.
And by 2015, another success was achieved when Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) came into the village - which is challenging to reach with graveled sections on a one-way village road with slopes – and identify mulberry planting as their entrepreneurial project to improve the villagers socio-economy.
Now there are about 1,000 trees planted across three hectares of plots in the village, consisting of 60 participants with the assistance of UMS.
Right now the trees are fairly young and Marius admits that the constraint to expand their mulberry production and commercialise his wine brand is limited land, which translates to limited production despite bigger demand.
“While it is a great idea and dream of mine, for now it’s hard to imagine us expanding the wine-making due to limited supply,” said Marius.
However, the village development and security committee (JKKK) chairperson Emmylice Sirinus who is Marius 27-year-old niece, remains hopeful if more villagers actually participated in the project.
“We have about 300 villagers and if the whole family actually participates we could increase our production,” said the lady who has also been farming vegetables for nine years.
While they have also started introducing mulberry tea using its leaves, which is in its early stages as they still depend on the University for the processing and packaging process, most of their efforts went to selling mulberry fruits at RM6 per pack at roadside stalls there.
“Again, we have people not just from Kota Kinabalu, even tourists, who want more of our products but for now we can only offer whatever we can cultivate.” she added.