This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 17, 2024 - June 23, 2024

In September 2021, a swathe of over 12,000ha in the northwestern part of Penang Island, stretching from the hills to the sea, was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) biosphere reserve, recognising immense biodiversity that can be found within the forest, coastal and marine ecosystems at this site, now called the Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve (PHBR).

Penang Hill, for which the biosphere is named, and actually a range of hills, is popular with tourists and locals for its cool environment, historical resort bungalows and funicular train ride. Yet, unknown to many, the Penang Hill range is also a major water catchment area, and at the same time has many farms producing vegetables, fruit and flowers.

Farming on the hill has long been practised, predating the 2004 water catchment gazettement and even the funicular railway that was built in 1929. Nevertheless, concern has been raised over its environmental impact. Short-term crops grown on terraced hill slopes can lead to soil erosion, the rampant use of agrichemicals can cause contamination of groundwater, while the extraction of water for irrigation within water catchment areas will diminish the municipal water supply.

With the Unesco biosphere reserve designation, the question arises as to whether farming activities are at levels that may compromise this international status. While some conservationists argue for shutting down the farms and reforesting the farm terraces, it is important to point out that this is not at all it means to be designated a biosphere reserve.

Unesco’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme does not just aim to preserve nature and biodiversity in all its rawness. At its core, the programme is aimed at “enhancing the relationship between people and their environments” and “improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems” (unesco.org/en/mab). It is precisely for the potential to show that human livelihood activities can exist alongside biodiversity conservation that the biosphere reserve recognition has been conferred.

Therefore, we need to ask whether we can implement policies that will protect the hills and, at the same time, allow the farms to continue. If farms could be more environmentally sustainable, producing healthy produce at a reduced environmental footprint, they would be a valuable contribution to the local food supply chain, thereby aligning with, and giving substance to, the biosphere reserve status.

With these concerns in mind, we gathered a team to carry out a study on the Penang Hill farms to better understand the reality on the ground. We focused on the eastern slopes where there is a concentration of farms despite being gazetted hill land. This area is bounded by two water catchments and lies within the transition zone of the PHBR, with most of the farms at the level of Middle Station of the funicular railway, reachable only through hiking and motorcycle trails.

Using geoinformation system (GIS) techniques, we mapped 77 agricultural lots, noting that these lots do not necessarily correspond with discrete farms since there could be farms that span more than one lot and, conversely, lots that contain more than one farm each. Contrary to our expectations, we found through land title record searches that most of these agricultural lots (75%) are privately owned, and only 13% are owned by the state or state-related entities, with the remaining 12% of unknown status.

Concurrently, we carried out a field survey, walking through, observing and visiting about 20 farms, and interviewing farmers and their family members. Through all this, we found a dense social network of second- and third-generation farming families with entrenched farming practices for short-term crops. We met a few farmers who are in their 30s and 40s, but many are ageing and having to work on their own as their children do not want to farm.

There are obvious advantages to farming on hilly terrain — the cooler climate and a generally ample water supply among them — but the difficulties are many. Since vehicular access to the farms is limited, farm inputs such as fertilisers and farm produce can only be transported by motorcycles on narrow paths built and maintained by the farming community. Another problem is the loss of harvest to squirrels and monkeys, and sometimes to hikers passing through.

The majority of farms are located on private land, and the insecurity of land tenure is keenly felt by the farmers even though most of their families have farmed for decades. They therefore do not have the incentive to undertake long-term improvements. As one of them responded when asked why he does not plant more durian trees, “Durians take a long time and a lot of tending … What if you invest so much money and time, and then the landlord takes the land back? Our loss will be great then!”

Even though they are aware of the environmental damage that results from agrichemical use, the farmers depend on them to ensure yields, at the cost of increasing pesticide resistance, depletion of natural soil fertility and poor soil conservation. To conserve soil fertility, they practise crop rotation, occasionally fallowing different parts of the farm, and using organic fertiliser (quail or chicken dung) in combination with chemical fertilisers. However, abandoning agrichemicals entirely would lead to very low yields.

The farmers face increased production costs on the one hand, and slim profit margins and limited market outlets on the other. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022, the prices of fertilisers and pesticides have risen astronomically. Labour shortage, concomitantly increased labour costs, has been felt in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, as foreign (mainly Indonesian) workers left and did not return. As such, some farmers have curtailed their production to what is manageable on their own.

We observed two contrasting farm business models. One farm operator adopted monoculture, eschewing the traditional practices of inter-cropping and crop rotation. Using this approach, he is able to: (i) standardise a set of farming practices for one crop type — in this case, French beans — that can be easily followed by his hired workers; and (ii) produce in adequate and consistent quantities for an assured wholesale market throughout the year, maintaining a high level of production through the use of fertilisers, pesticides and weedicides.

The key question is whether this type of farming can be environmentally sustainable. High yields can only be maintained with ever higher rates of fertiliser and pesticide use. We were therefore gratified that we also observed another farm business model that is more environmentally sustainable.

This second farmer avoids the use of agrichemicals. He makes his own organic fertiliser from fermentation of fish innards that he collects daily from Air Itam market and transports to his farm. He focuses on abiu, or yellow golden fruit, but also grows durian, coconut, guava, longan and banana varieties. Nematodes and fruit flies are the main pests. To avoid infestation, the fruit has to be individually wrapped. However, one problem he faced recently (in 2023) was depressed yields of his abiu fruit resulting from a change in the weather pattern, indicating a need for an even greater diversification in his orchard.

Organic farming methods require greater labour and care. But if we want the future of Penang Hill to encompass the protection of farmers’ livelihoods as well as the environment, this farmer and his methods are a good starting point for working out what the way forward should be. If we could invest in efforts to improve upon his current farming practices — through input from other experienced organic farmers and state support — as well as convincing other farmers to adopt them, then this could be one way to advance Unesco’s MAB programme on Penang Hill.

The future of the Penang Hill farms is an open question. Although many farmers are already elderly, and their younger family members do not want to take over the farms, nonetheless there is the possibility that if the economy presents a lack of viable livelihood alternatives, there may be people —whether locals or foreigners — who would move in to take their place.

Currently, there seem to be a few younger farmers who have taken over their family farms. We came across at least one elderly farmer (though we hear of others) who is leasing his farm to foreign workers. On the other hand, landowners may reclaim their land, although any development that they may plan will face multiple legal restrictions, given the terrain.

The reality is that the farms on Penang Hill will not disappear in the foreseeable future. We contend that the best scenario is to nudge the farmers towards more natural ways of farming, aiming for regenerative agriculture to regain an ecological balance similar to the forest environment.

If Penang Hill farm products can be distinctively branded to be more naturally grown, focusing on quality and safety, the local market (and perhaps even the elite gourmet restaurants) will be enriched with produce that are fresh and good, and have a smaller environmental footprint by virtue of its local source. What does it take to meet this challenge?

Dr Chee Heng Leng and Dr Kam Suan Pheng are directors of Ara Research, a not-for-profit centre focused on environmental issues and policies. The study of Penang Hill farming is supported by The Habitat Foundation through a grant to Malaysian Nature Society Penang Branch.

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