Farmer Chin Kwai Leong never expected heavy police presence when he and a busload of farmers handed over two memoranda at the Perak State Secretariat (SUK) this moring.

The famers were seeking Perak Menteri Besar Abdul Zambry Kadir's assistance in suspending the leases of sand mining firms operating on the farm lands.

“I was surprised (at the sight of the police officers). There were so many of them. We just wanted to hand over our memorandum,” Chin said when contacted.

According to the memoranda, the 75 vegetable, fish and livestock farmers had worked on their respective lands for up to three generations, and had tried to buy the land for the past 20 years, but to no avail. 

However, on Feb 12, various plots of lands, involving 385,484 acres of land and 244,845 acres of fish farming land, were leased to private sand mining firms, the memoranda read.

The farmers urged the government to issue an order to suspend the sand mining until the matter was resolved.

"We'd really appreciate it if the Perak government would let us continue farming on the land we have been working on for years," said Chin, who was representing 75 farmers.

The farmers had also previously handed over a memorandum to Perak executive councillor Mah Hang Soon on April 7, but had yet to receive a response.

This prompted them to bring the matter up to the MB.