PETALING JAYA: Key Alliance Group Bhd subsidiary Agrocloud Sdn Bhd has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Malaysian Cocoa Board (MCB) to collaborate and assist Malaysian cocoa smallholders utilising the latest technology to improve their efficiency and productivity.
Agrocloud is extending its technological capabilities obtained via an exclusive partnership with Austria’s Pessl Instruments following a successful initial test run with rice smallholders in Malaysia. The initial test run has seen promising results and hoped the deployment in cocoa farms will provide better datasets for a holistic approach towards crop monitoring solutions in Malaysia.
Agrocloud managing director Marcus Hon (pix) stated that its goals are aligned with MCB’s, which is to assure consumers through sustainability and traceability information for their peace of mind, in addition to efforts of increasing productivity and income of smallholders.
Emboldened by the results of its initial precision agriculture advisory tools for paddy smallholders, he decided to extend the technology to cocoa.
“Smallholders in general do not have a centralised data management system to monitor the growth process of their produce. Hence, we are partnering with MCB to develop a Cocoa Information Management System (CIMS) so that cocoa plantations can be managed similar to an airline managing its fleet,” said Hon.
The managing director stressed that the CIMS is not only for small smallholders, but large plantation smallholders can also benefit from the technology to fully digitalise their operations.
At the moment, the group is in negotiation with a major cocoa player in Malaysia for the adoption of the systems.
The MoU between Agrocloud and MCB took place in Dubai during the launch of Expo 2020 Sustainable Agricommodities week.
