Red, Red Rice

THEY come from padi farmer families but Marzuki Zakaria, 49, and his wife, Rosnah Ahmad, 42, didn't work the fields when they were young. He was with his uncle in Kuala Lumpur while she tended to the household when her parents were out in the field.
It was a year after they got married, he at the age of 24 and she just turning 18, that they decided to set up home at Kampung Baru Paya Mengkuang, Gurun, in Kedah, and to get their own padi field.
"Dulu, Akak tak pernah buat kerja ni. Dah kawin baru buat sawah, noreh getah (I never did this before. It was only after I got married that I worked the field and tapped rubber)," says Rosnah, pulling threads of hardened latex from the bark of the old tree.
"Tanah sawah dah berkurun. Pokok getah pun dah tua... sepuluh, dua puluh batang (We have had the padi field for a long time. The rubber trees are also old... 10 to 20 trees)," she says, as she deftly runs her knife round the tree.
Numbers don't seem to matter much to the mother of six. A quick count shows there are closer to 50 trees. The padi field is as old or slightly older than their eldest daughter, who is 24.
Rosnah supplements the family income by tapping rubber. She gets between RM40 and RM50, depending on the price of rubber, for each delivery every two days of the latex to a nearby factory. She also makes and sells ikan pekasam (pickled fish), a Kedah specialty.
Rosnah keeps a pretty routine schedule; tapping rubber trees for about three hours in the morning beginning at 7 am before returning home to cook. After lunch, she joins Marzuki and other adults at the bendang (padi field) until late afternoon.
"Nothing much to do now except spraying fertiliser and looking out for pests. The busiest periods are when we are planting... and harvesting."
She has been doing the bulk of the work ever since Marzuki went for a cataract operation some months ago.
Their padi field doesn't look any different from, say, those in the Muda scheme, Kedah's rice bowl.
But it produces red rice, which was something of an anathema – until Nestle Malaysia came along with its "One Village, One Product" programme. The international food conglomerate uses the highly nutritional grain in the manufacture of its infant cereal products.
The pilot project, which started up a year ago, involves 16.3 hectares of land and 12 farmers.
"This is my plot. That's my father's. Next to it is my father-in-law's," Marzuki says in the growing heat of the late morning as he shows us around.
In the middle of the field, there is a solitary betel nut tree whose purpose seems to be to mark the location of the water pump. Another tree, closer to the main road, is referred to by villagers as the "telecommunication tower". It is the only spot in the vicinity where you can get a reception on your mobile phone.
And if you're hoping to catch scenes from some Malay drama, the likes of TV3's Cerekarama offerings - farmers resting in little huts after a morning's hard work in the field and buffaloes being used to plough the land - you're in the wrong place.
"Kat sini mana ada (There is no such thing here)," says Marzuki, laughing, when asked about the huts. "It's (the field) so close to the house. When we are tired, we just go home."
And tractors have long replaced buffaloes for working the land. The farmers also no longer undertake the backbreaking transplanting of seedlings.
Nestle plans to re-introduce the process this year though, but would bring in machinery for the purpose.
Currently, the farmers use a technique called tabur terus, or broadcast system, where seeds are sprayed directly on to the land. With this technique, padi could be found growing even on the bunds.
But not all is easy. During the milking stage (some 90 days after planting when the rice forms in the husks), "lodging" can happen, which is when the stalks get too heavy and collapse to the ground. This is a major cause of grain loss as well as decline in rice quality.
Heavy rain and strong winds can also cause damage to the stalks, making it necessary to harvest the rice manually then.
Treading gingerly along the bunds, we came across small semi-circle patches in the field. "Kerja orang malam (the work of the night people)," Marzuki says; referring to rats, which gnaw at the stalks to get to the padi.
Birds are also a problem, especially near harvest time, which is normally between 105 and 120 days after planting.
The project had its second harvest last month. The first one was in September, which saw an average yield of 3.051 tonnes per hectare, compared to the company's target of four tonnes, says Nestle agriculture services manager Yong Lee Keng.
At the same time, Nestle also harvested the semi-commercial trial project it introduced with Nina Agriculture on a 10-hectare land nearby. There, the average yield was 4.629 tonnes per hectare.
Rice supplier Ninamaju Sdn Bhd buys the padi at 85 sen per kg from the farmers and processes it for Nestle. The farmers have seen a 40 per cent increase in income given the red padi's higher yield compared to the white variety, and also the much better price fetched.
White rice goes for a government-set minimum price of 55 sen a kg.
Yong says the company had sourced the non-photosensitive period variety of rice from Sarawak, where the padi, known as padi angin, doesn't take as long to be planted and harvested.
Old habits die hard though, even as the farmers at Kampung Baru Paya Mengkuang are introduced and implementing new things in a trade they have been in for generations.
Nestle has taught the participants of the project the tried and tested way to produce red rice, with the understanding of purchasing their entire production. This allows the company to have direct control over the quality and supply of the raw material for its manufacturing operations.
The company had done much groundwork too, having evaluated suitable farming sites, prepared the land, and advised the farmers on how to manage the plots as well as on pre- and post-harvest control processes. The farmers are introduced to improved planting materials, farming practices and technology, so as to maximise yield.
In the padi field, there is a plot where it looks like not a single blade of grass grows in-between the padi stalks. Nestle holds up this plot as an example of how things should be.
"We tell the farmers, if they plant the way we teach them, their plot will look like this. The yield will be higher. We weed out the grass before the seeds are broadcast," Yong says.
Unfortunately, not many of the other plots look like Nestle's. The farmers did not properly prepare the land before planting.
"That is one of the reasons why we plan to introduce transplanting next year. Normally when transplanting is done, there will be water on the plot and grass don't grow in water," he explains.
As the various problems with planting and harvesting in the pilot project are sorted out, Nestle intends to increase red rice planting to a targeted 150 hectares per season which will enable it to be self-sufficient in supplies for its infant cereal production operations.
"Malaysia has become the centre for red rice production following Nestle's consolidation of its operations in the region. We now manufacture the infant cereals at our plant in Shah Alam and 80 per cent of our production are exported to countries within Asean."
Currently, red rice is imported from Thailand to meet the company's raw grain demand.
Red rice doesn't taste as good as white rice and so in infant cereals, flavours are added.
"If you're a white rice eater, you won't like red rice. It's a little hard, like pulut hitam (black glutinous rice). You have to use a lot of water to cook it. In Thailand, they make porridge from it," Yong says.
Back at Marzuki's house, children are playing under a tree house on top of a cashew tree that overlooks the padi field.
"Malam-malam, kami tidur kat situ (sometimes we sleep there at night)," says Marzuki's nephew, Badrul Hisham Mohd Shukri, or Ka'un as he is known among family members.
Ka'un, like his uncle when he was his age, doesn't help out in the bendang. In fact, none of Marzuki's six children - five daughters and a son - does.
Ka'un, who spends his weekends and school holidays at Marzuki's house, says in his thick Kedahan accent, "Kat sini kawan ramai. Petang-petang dok kat titi tepi sawah (I have many friends here. In the evening, we would sit at the small bridge next to the padi field)."
He and his other school-age cousins also spend their free time watching Hindustani movies on TV.
Little wonder, over lunch at the house, Rosnah says, "Mana ada masa...ada aja kerja nak buat (I don't have free time... there is a lot of work to be done)."
She, together with the other womenfolk, had prepared a spread of fish curry with ladyfingers, sambal belacan, blanched young cashew leaves as ulam, grilled ikan termenong (or ikan kembong to KLites) and acar rampai made up of sliced cucumber, onions and red chillies.
In a typical Malay household, the men eat first, followed by the women and children.
The only boy in Marzuki's family, the shy 14-year-old Mohammad Zahir, doesn't know as yet what he wants to be after he finishes school. His same-age cousin Ka'un intends to become a policeman.
Maybe Zahir will follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, which is looking to be a reasonable vocation with companies like Nestle having started to come in to help offer farmers a brighter future.