BENTONG: Since having his first taste of fresh fig when he was working with a oil and gas company in Iraq four years ago, Mohamad Hafidz Arifin, 32, became interested in agriculture and started learning more about it.
When he came home early last year, he planted a few fig plants and saw that it could grow in Malaysia.
Realising its market potential, he decided to quit his more than RM15,000 a month job to venture into agriculture full-time.
“Fig, or its scientific name Ficus Carica, is normally grown in the Middle East and not many people dare to try to plant it in the country, despite the high demand for the fruit, which can also be sold in the form of juice.
“I challenged myself to make it a success and decided to quit my job, although the income was lucrative,” said Mohamad Hafidz, a graduate in human resource management from Universiti Putra Malaysia.
With a startup capital of RM200,000 and knowledge acquired from friends and colleaques, as well as through the Internet, Mohamad Hafidz said he built a green house to plan the fig.
He planted 400 fig plants and they were now producing fruits, which he sold for RM60 per kilogramme at the farm, while the retail price is RM80 per kilogramme.
“What is interesting about planting fig is that, it does not require a large area or take long to yield fruits. The fig plants start to yield fruits by the fourth to sixth month and each plant can produce up to 40kg per harvest,” he said.
On the market for figs, Mohamad Hafidz said he had his hands full meeting demands from hotel operators and health juice manufacturers.
He said fig is high in anti-oxidant , vtamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, calcium, iron, phosphorus, manganese, sodium, potassium and chlorine, as well as fibre, and could address colon and cholesterol.
“It is not just the fruit that is nutritious, the leaves can be used to make tea, believed to control sugar level for diabetes, while the stems can be sold to make seedlings,” he added.
Mohamad Hafidz said he hoped to break even in two years and planned to expand his farm with those keen to work with him.