Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Hasanuddin University, Prof. Dr. Ir. Salengke, M.Sc received a visit from the Kairos Agriculture team from Penang, Malaysia. The activity took place on the 2nd floor of the Faperta Assembly Room starting at 13.00 WITA on Wednesday (11/1/2023).

Prof. Salengke welcomed the visit of a company engaged in the production of vanilla, considering that Indonesia and Malaysia have had a long-standing cooperative relationship in various fields. He added that the Faculty of Agriculture could help connect Kairos Agriculture with local farmers or with the local government.

“Unhas is a tertiary institution that can collaborate with various companies both at home and abroad, so this collaboration is very possible,” said Prof. Salengke.

On this occasion, Alfred Phua Kok as the founder of Kairos Agriculture expressed his gratitude to the Faculty of Agriculture for being willing to pave the way for cooperation. For that, he intends to empower local farmers.

According to him, several areas in South Sulawesi can be used as locations for vanilla cultivation by utilizing the method of smart farming. He said, although in South Sulawesi there are several vanilla cultivations, the types cultivated are still limited so that on this occasion, he took the initiative to introduce other species that can be cultivated easily.

“Kairos Agriculture focuses on vanilla cultivation and all things related to vanilla, which we call agriculture 4.0 because it utilizes various technologies such as AI, IoT, and others. But we will do it step by step if what we have discussed today has been realized,” said Alfred.

Alfred added that currently vanilla has quite high demand. This has made many modern farmers increasingly interested in cultivating vanilla. The visit also discussed several important agendas related to future cooperation plans.