Introduction
Production efficiency in agriculture has rapidly increased within several decades in which the proportion of farm worker diminished from about one in three of the working population to less than one in 18. The process was attended by an almost equally sharp fall in the real prices of agricultural product. Consequently, the rise in production efficiency in agriculture has increased real incomes especially for people involved in agriculture. They were able to spend more on industrial goods, and the share of consumer income spent on industrial products increased in absolute terms and relative to the share spent on farm product (Manders and Brenner, 1988). In other hand, food security has become a major concern to our country to ensure enough food supply for our nation. Malaysian National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) study in Malaysia shows that the overriding issue in agriculture sector is the predominance of small-scale farmers and the lack of large, industrial-scale companies. For example, the average farm-size in paddy farming is 2 hectares (economic size is approximately 300 hectares), 2 hectares in aquaculture (economic size is 1,000 hectares for an integrated operation) and 1 hectare in the cultivation of fruits (economic size is 1,000 hectares in order to support one sorting, processing and packaging plant) (Economic Transformation Programme, 2011).
The impact of enviroment due to inconsistent wheather and increase in temperature has directly affected the overall yield of our food productivity. Higher temperatures reduce yields of desirable crops. In 2008, the average mean daily temperature of Malaysia was 26.7 C while the average rainfall was 2,121mm in the peninsula and 3,208mm in Sabah and Sarawak in which indicate that Malaysia is vulnerable to inconsistent weather patterns (Dr. Wan Azli, 2009).
It is also a clear facts that enviroment and lack of land will be a major problem to our nation especially to agricultural sector. The alternative method of improving food safety and security is by introducing vertical farming or indoor farming system to overcome two major issues that we are facing ac highlighted above. However, the move from outdoor to indoor will introduce new problem, which is the sunlight radiation. Plant can’t survive without enough light for photosynthesis activities. The research will attempt to analyze the growth performance of the crop by using led light as artificial light and study the impact of periodic sun light simulation effect by oberserving growth responses of identified crop. LED Grow Light is an effective counterplan for climatic changes in future farming and produces cold energy and lowest heat dissipation which is very suitable for indoor vertical farming.
Research background
The use of greenhouse technology under the precision farming guidelines enhanced crop yield by 3-4 times for tomato and 4-5 times for capsicum in comparison to the conventional method of farming. Precision agriculture is a concept of doing agriculture at highest accuracy, which is beneficial to both farmers and environment (Johnson and Raun, 2000). Many countries have benefited from this technology but mainly the system is design for outdoor used. Outdoor plant requirement might differ to indoor plant in terms of fertilizer intake and might required different temperature and humidity. The study on effect of using Sun Light versus LED Light shall be analyzed especially on the impact of the overall performance of the plant growth and plant requirement. The problems of using LED light are the behavior of the plant are not been taken care of and energy waste. The use of periodic LED Lighting system on the crop performance will be observed and the effect of providing different light intensity at various timing following actual Sun Light radiation will be studied. It is hope that problems of present agricultural industry such as environmental and food shortage issues by global warming, high energy cost and energy conservation by using HID bulb increase and the decrease of annual production/ income due to climatic change could be solved.
Research Activities
- Inatex 2013
- MyTRIZ Competition 2013
- MTE 2014
- UKM October 2014
- Udang Najee 2014