How a website finds riches in a peppery spice

Information and communication technology has surely taken centre stage. So an entrepreneur is not enough to describe someone who takes financial risks to start a business to make money. Dr Yee Moh Chai, a Sabah deputy chief minister, says business now relies on high technology. And as minister of resource development and information technology, he encourages technopreneurship – a word coined by combining technology and entrepreneuship. Alvis Loo, 26, is one happy and rich technopreneur.

Loo, general manager of eValueAsian Sendirian Berhad, hit on the idea of growing red peppers by fertigation, a farming method by combining fertilizers, soil nutrients and water to irrigate plants.

He was then running an internet consultancy when he received a letter seeking help in farming.

“What I saw was an opportunity,” he tells Insight Sabah. “They had a big piece of land but weren’t able to develop it. So I took a chance to start a farm growing cili padi semerah (red-hot peppers).”

Cili padi semerah is a popular variety developed by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) 17 years ago. It grows fast, is resistant to diseases and is two or three times the size of the most common variety.

The fertigation system was introduced about four years ago with the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) carrying out research to find out if it would suit farming in Sabah, according to Loo.

He started with a quarter of an acre which he rented from a landlord in Penampang. With 18,000 ringgit ($6,000) he bought 1,000 chilli plants at 15 ringgit each and spent the rest on fertilizers, a tank and other equipment. He employed a worker.

Today he has almost a hectare (two and a quarter acres) with 11,000 chilli plants which give him an income of about 400,000 ringgit a year. He sells his chillis to wholesalers for between 8 and 12 ringgit a kg and restaurants for between 15 and 20 ringgit a kg.

Loo formed his company last October and in May, eValueAsian won the Sabah Got Ideas contest and received a 20,000-ringgit grant from Dr Yee’s ministry for his technopreneurship. His company offers management services to farmers in growing crops such as red peppers, cherry tomotatoes and rock melons using fertigation and green house methods.

Recently, a three-day conference on business incubation and entrepreneurship for Asia Pacific of the National Incubator Network Association (NINA) was held in Kota Kinabalu where technopreneurs like Loo discussed opportunities and challenges of their industry. It was jointly organized by NINA and the Sabah West Coast Technopreneur Association (SATA)