According to the statistics given by the swiftlet farming industry, swiflet farming is now contributing RM1 billion to the national income and this is expected to increase to RM5 billion by 2015.

Our venture into the bird's nest industry began rather late in the 1990s compared to our neighbouring countries, However, it is growing very rapidly here. Currently there are more than 8,000 swiftlet farm-owners operating 40,000 swiftlet houses in the country.

Shouldn't the success of the bird's nests industry be emulated? The success of this industry reminds us of the potential to developed other agriculture sectors such as in-house farming on a large scale to enable us to exported vegetables to the Middle East countries which currently import most of their food and drinks from the US, Pakistan and Austria

We also cannot discount the possibility of venturing into ‘vertical farming' in Malaysia which is believed to be the solution to expanding food production in the future. In fact, vertical farming is not new to us.

When Sanusi Junid served as agriculture minister, he had taken the initiative to experiment with growing rice on the rooftops of buildings and this was considered impractical by many people but

today, with the advances in science, this method can be implemented without much difficulty.

The advances in agricultural science and technology have also provided opportunities for urban dwellers to undertake hydroponic agriculture in limited areas.

For this reason, we should encourage more of the city population to grow their own agriculture plants either to supplement their incomes or as a leisure activity to make the city more lively and healthy.