By Wahida Fitriah
GOMBAK, 23 December 2021: IIUM has started the green initiative known as “Green Fingers” aimed at fostering the culture of planting to achieve food security by utilising different techniques of agricultural skills.
Dato Hamidon, the advisor of Green Fingers, told IIUMToday that the idea on Green Fingers came from the Rector, Prof. Emeritus Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, who wanted to see IIUM initiating a sustainability and food security project.
He said that with great assistance from volunteers including the staff and students, the project managed to plant a variety of vegetables and fruit trees such as mustard green, spinach, chilies, pineapple, and jackfruit.
œThe vegetables are viable because they could be harvested every month while some of the fruit trees will take a longer time to bear the fruits, Dato Hamidon said.
Through this activity, volunteers were able to gain hands-on experience of planting the vegetables and fruits, he said.
Apart from crop planting, Dato Hamidon indicated that there is also a pending project called Cycle Therapy Garden which is included in the Green Fingers initiative.
Despite the success in development of the initiative, he added, capital is the ultimate hindrance for fast progress to expand the project.Â
On the other hand, getting the expertise to engage in the project is not an obstacle since “a friend in the agro-business agreed to contribute to the project”, according to Dato’ Hamidon.
In giving back to our community, the organic vegetables that have been harvested can be sold at reasonable price which Dato Hamidon envisioned Gombak as main producer of crops.
If securing a funding is possible, Dato Hamidon intended to invest in an incubator which will help to widen the agricultural knowledge and to cultivate the skills among the community members to become agropreneurs who are capable of growing their own crops.
The Green Fingers project had gained recognition from the university and recently received an appreciation award.***