Malaysia Veterinary Forum (Archive)

Dr. TanDY

UPM Continues To Lead Agriculture Development

KUALA LUMPUR, May 3 (Bernama) -- Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) has never forgotten its original role of being the pioneer or leader in the country's agricultural development although it once gave some focus on other fields as well.

Its Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dr Nik Mustapha Raja Abdullah said UPM was ever prepared to continue its task to develop the sector under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP).

"UPM never abandoned agriculture, although there was a time when we became involved in several other fields. At that time we felt it was the right thing to do because many other fields were being given focus such as the Information Technology (IT)," said Nik Mustapha during an interview by Bernama recently.

He said UPM had forged ahead of other public institutions of higher learning in certain agricultural branches such as biotechnology and vaccine production.

Nik Mustapha said UPM's commitment in agriculture started in 1971 when Kolej Pertanian Malaysia, UPM and Universiti Malaya's Agriculture Faculty were merged. Starting off with only three faculties -- Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine and Animal Husbandry, UPM later extended its scope to include engineering, medicine, pure science, economy, management, education, language and communication.

Nik Mustapha said the university was forced to intensify its research in view of the rapid development in related technology.

Currently, the university sits on 8.8 hectares in Serdang, including its estate, and it has another 160 hectares of estate in Puchong.

"The estate in Puchong will be turned into a centre from which entrepreneurs in agriculture would be churned out," he said. "The courses at the centre include fish, cattle and chicken rearing, and other agricultural activities," he said.

Nik Mustapha said one of the long-term targets of the university was to increase the number of male students as there were now too many girls undergoing courses in the university.

UPM now has 20,000 students undergoing degree courses while only 5,000 are studying for their Master's.

He stressed that the university would keep up its research activities because this was important in the development of agriculture.

He hoped the setting up of the Center for Innovation and Commercialization (ICC) at UPM, would increase the discoveries or inventions at the university for commercialisation.