SANDAKAN: When Hamsah Herman first clicked on an online video about fertigation farming, he was merely passing time.
Ten years later, that same curiosity led him and his wife to quit stable careers and build a farm in Sandakan, turning online videos into a full-time livelihood.
The 47-year-old former water treatment technician and his wife, former teacher Norliati Tamrin, leased a plot of land to plant 4,770 polybags of chilli, eggplant and cucumber.
The couple’s journey began in 2015 when a friend introduced Hamsah to fertigation, a farming method that uses an automated drip irrigation system to deliver water and fertiliser directly to a plant’s roots.
Armed with little more than determination and lessons from YouTube videos, the couple started with just 60 polybags of chilli outside their home in Kampung Tinusa 2, a coastal village.
Those early days were far from easy.
Although the yields were encouraging, Hamsah quickly realised that enthusiasm alone was not enough.
“There was potential from the standpoint of production, but we lacked knowledge and did not understand marketing,” he said.
Rather than giving up, Hamsah sought out training opportunities, travelling to Hulu Langat in Selangor and Gopeng in Perak to attend fertigation courses and learn everything from disease management to fertiliser calculations.
The knowledge paid off.
In 2017, he was offered a site by Universiti Malaysia Sabah to expand to 1,000 polybags, marking the beginning of his commercial venture.
His efforts eventually caught the attention of Politeknik Sandakan, which later rented him a plot of land to further develop the farming.
Despite earning between RM4,500 and RM5,000 a month as a technician, Hamsah resigned from his job at the end of 2019 to focus entirely on farming.
“It wasn’t an easy decision because I had a stable income, but I wanted something that gave me satisfaction. Even though the work is tiring, I am happy with what I am doing,” he said.
As the business grew, Norliati also left her teaching career to help manage the farm full-time.
The couple’s farm has since become a learning site for students undergoing practical training in agrotechnology, with Hamsah also serving as an industry adviser to the institution.
He hopes their story will inspire more young people to look at agriculture differently.
“People think agriculture means working under the hot sun, getting dirty and doing hard labour. But agriculture today is not what it used to be. It is a high-impact sector. If you have land, you can develop it yourself,” he said.
Demand for vegetables in Sabah remains strong and, according to him, local production is still insufficient to meet market needs.
“There is still a lot of room for more people to get involved.
“If young people want to try, they should not be afraid. But make sure you have the knowledge first,” he said.
