UMS, UniMAP to work together in agriculture and agrotechnology

Kasim (left) exchanging documents with Zaliman while being witnessed by the Regent of Perlis Tuanku Syed Faizuddin.

KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) will share expertise in agriculture and agrotechnology following the signing of a letter of intent (LoI) between the two varsities.

The LoI was signed at UMS’ Sandakan campus at its Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture.

According to UMS vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Mansor, the field of agriculture played an important role in ensuring the availability and sufficiency of food.

He said the knowledge and expertise of researchers at the Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture would always be utilised in order to think of new strategies and innovations to help farmers increase production yield, thus improving food security in the country.

"It is hoped that with the cooperation with UniMAP, we will go a step further by inking a memorandum of agreement (MoA) between the two universities," he said, in a statement here on Friday (March 31).

"Then, all expertise from both sides can be shared with each other,” he said in his speech at the Sandakan UMS campus’ Titian Kasih 2023 programme recently.

At the LoI signing session, UMS was represented by Kasim while UniMAP was represented by its vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Zaliman Sauli.

The Regent of Perlis Tuanku Syed Faizuddin Putra Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Jamalullail, who is also the UniMAP chancellor, was also present to witness the LoI signing ceremony.

Also present at the session were Perlis Mentri Besar Mohd Shukri Ramli and Perlis executive council (exco) member Izizam Ibrahim.

Kasim said UniMAP, which was known for engineering technology, will help UMS in improving expertise in engineering, perhaps in fields such as agricultural technology, fertilisation, planting and various others involving mechanical engineering.

"Through such collaborations and high spirit between UniMAP and UMS, all the vision and missions that have been set can be realised.

"UMS and UniMAP agreed to cooperate in projects research, publication and academic development," he said.

Besides that, he added, exchange of information, faculty members, students as well as the holding of community services, seminars, training or courses and other areas of cooperation were also part of the agreement between the two universities.

"Thank you and well done to everyone involved as this is a much-awaited platform to mobilise all our experts and researchers.

"It is hoped that everything asspired today will be achieved and become a reality for the sake of progress and success between the two universities and states in particular, as well as Malaysia in general," Kasim said.