Replacement

Kabong once upon a time was a prime supplier of ripe coconut for the Sibu and Sarikei market. The supply was steady and could meet the demand and no problem of shortage. But that was many years ago. Now the scenario has changed dramatically. Many time, ripe coconut was scarce and the price of Santan (coconut milk) rose up.

What caused the problem? On my trip to Kabong recently that i found out that, the coconut trees had grown old and less productive. Besides, the land for coconut has been planted with palm oil instead of replanted with coconuts.


Besides coconut, Kabong is also producing Mempelam (a type of Mango) which commands a good market price.....a kilo of young fruit could fetch a price of RM 6.00 t0 RM 8.00. Now Mempelam trees are still flowering (on the right side of the pic).

The coconut tree on the left is at the prime age and bearing a lot of fruit. This was the common sight many years ago. In the fore ground you could see green vegetation. This is not grass but paddy field. Harvesting has just been completed. Soon they will be having Pesta Beras Wangi (Fragrance Rice Festival). Is Kabong also producing Fragrance Rice?

Shifting Cultivation

Shifting Cultivation is still practice in Sarawak. It is mainly done for the purpose of planting hill paddy (padi bukit). The land is cleared by cutting down trees, usually in hills or slopes of mountains. The land is cleared as early as July and left to dry up until late September. By then the trees will be dry enough for burning.


The trees are then burn. In fully burnt fields, the tree trunks are reduced to ashes completely. This will in turn acts as fertilizer for the young paddy plants, and this will then produce good yields.

Partly burnt tree trunks are cut into manageable size and re burn. The green growth that you see here are paddy plants which are starting to grow.

From this picture you can easily recognized the land cycle that is involve in this shifting cultivation. The land is left to fallow until the trees are grown to 6-8 inches in diameter. This may takes up to 8-10 years. By doing so, there is enough time for the land to heal itself. As shifting cultivation is done on a small scale basis, the environmental effect is not so much.

Haze

The weather was hot and dry with the moonson months just round the corner. With this favorable conditions only occurring within a short window of time, farmers need to burn their fields so that they could plant hill paddy. Slash and burn farming is a common practice for hill paddy farmers.


With thick smoke from these open burning, and almost calm weather, the effects brought up by the sun was very spectacular and very beautiful to see.

Even though, the sun is still up, the surrounding was misty but warm.