Penang Watch

Chin run his organic farm in Sg Durian for 12 years now-and he need your help!You can help to bring some lights to Chin's organic farm house in a most ecological way!

Halo friends,

We are writing to you to seek support to help an
organic farmer install badly needed solar panels in his farm in Sg
Durian(near Tg Tualang), 1 hour drive south of Ipoh.

Collection as of Nov 4th: RM170.00. RM7k needed. Keep it coming, Malaysians!

Collection as of 8th Dec : Rm2170.00. More needed-keep it coming, Malaysians!

Problem: Organic
farmer Chin Yew Wah(see Chin and his farm in attached pictures) learned
about organic farming in US where he used to work. After coming back to
Ipoh with his wife in 1997 the 2 started an organic farm-planting fruit
trees and vegetables, in Sg Durian, in an isolated 6-acre land where
there is no supply of electricity. Since he is a strong
environmentalist he does not like to use diesel generator for his
house' energy need. So he had been using car batteries to light up 2
fluorocent tubes for the house-just for a couple of hours in the
evening-for dinner. He has to regularly bring the batterias back to
town for charging. The limited lighting also limit the number of
visitors to the great farm where he built a big 4-room house.
Computer/internet cannot be used on the farm because there is limited
electricity supply. After his wife left him 2 years ago Chin decied to
open the farm to more participants. But the lack of electricity supply
could be an inhibition.

Solution: to help him out some friends suggested -and he
agreed, to install 2 solar panels on his farm to supply 100w of
electricity so that he can operate 10 LED lights and power a notebook
computer. The cost of purchasing the panels,  lighting set up and
wiring work cost RM7000.00, according to a supplier contacted by us. We
appeal to you to help donate towards this amount to light up the
organic farm in the most eco-friendly way which is acceptable by the
organic farmer. Installing the solar panel may cost less than the high
cost of bringing electricity from the nearest town which is kilometers
away. But still the solar panels are too costly for him to bear-though
it would be cost effective in the longer run. But the solar panels
could be a small price to pay for making our environment more
sustainable.

Chin said that he welcome all donors to visit and stay on his farm after the solar panels are installed!

Donation welcome:
Please call me if you have any queries about this project. If you are
ready to donate you can deposit the donation to the following account:
SOS Trading 507059522283-May Bank. (This is the account of Penang
Organic Farm Information Centre).

Or you can call to suggest other ways of sending your donation. As
supporters of organic and ecologically sustainable agriculture I appeal
to you not to dissappoint Chin who had persisted in producing healthy
food for the last12 years. Do your part now for a low-carbon economy!

Looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to forward this appeal to your friends.

Ong Boon Keong
Penang Organic Farming Information Centre
013-5900339

P/S:I have 10-years of experience running an organic farm in Balik Pulau before.