Trip to Perlis, Malaysia #2

PART 2 

So... Early in the morning, we were woke up to be a part timer in watermelon farm.

 Overview of the farm

Our task is...
To pollinate the flower from yellow watermelon species to red watermelon species, manually.

Why?
Because we are producing F1 hybrid fruit.
That's gonna hurt my back...

 Left: female flower ; Right: male flower

Big watermelon spotted

Luckily, we are only part timer.
Salute to the full timers. This is seriously so much of effort to be done.

Price of watermelon: RM0.40-60 per kg (USD 0.11-0.16)
So much of hard work, yet being paid so little...
.
.
.

This is the problem of small scale conventional farmers in Malaysia. 
They work so hard, invest so much of capital and effort, bear all the risk.
Yet the middleman gets the most benefits. They just need to transport it to the market!
The middleman earn at least twice of the farm price!

The farm owner gave each of us one watermelon as reward.
We decided to eat half of those, another half became...

 This gem!

Next, we moved to vegetables farm.

Vegetable: Amaranth (Bayam in Malay)

 Pure green type

  Red-green type

Red type

Leafy vegetables cultivation is relatively rare compared to highland in Malaysia.

The owner told us he failed few times trying to cultivate cucumber.
Not because failing to get yield,
But because failing to get good selling price!

Well, this is the problem we having here!
They are always being manipulated by the middleman.

The landscape of vegetables farm. 

Many people who grow up in the cities may not even seen this before.

Time for refreshment~

I forgot the name of this Thai appetizer. 

But I shall call it 'super duper spicy mixture of secret Thai recipe'.

We returned to my friends' family shop.
It's a traditional old school type of grocery store.
It sells some of the crop produces from the farm.

 -END OF PART 2-