KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 — Personal touch, hard work and dedication is what keeps Agro Surge Sdn Bhd at the top of their game in the local agriculture industry.

Agro Surge CEO Siti Hawa Jaafar said they’ve managed to gain traction in the industry due to the trust they’ve built with their clients, especially farmers whom they meet personally in order to gauge their potential for growth.

"We go to farmers and growers personally in rural areas to ascertain how we can help them and tell them we want to offer them the best quality fertilizers. If we can offer them the best product with the most competitive price, it would then translate into more yield and more income for the farmers.

"The agriculture industry is always growing and post-pandemic we find that prices are fluctuating due to economic instability, war and post pandemic recovery efforts.

"It became apparent to us that in the challenging marketplace we needed to find a way to keep prices low, raise awareness for our products as well as continue learning how we can improve to help our customers grow,” Siti said when met at the Malaysian Agriculture, Horticulture and Agrotourism Exhibition (Maha) today.

Agro Surge’s visits to farmers was a way of collecting data and information which the company then analysed before making recommendations.

They would then return to these clients months later and gather more data to find the best solution for them.

"We base their level of growth from experiences prior. We know how much their crops should yield and we crosscheck our data with thier yield. We then take this back and figure out ways to help them maximise their yield.

"This process is where the science comes in as we try to figure out the best recipe or formula for them,” said Siti.

Agro Surge is participating in Maha which they said has done wonders for them. Siti said they have had lots of enquiries on how farmers can gain more yield with their products.

To date they have made around RM700,000 worth of quotations to potential clients. Agro Surge fertilisers are Sawit Emas and Sawit Emas Maxcorp for oil palm cultivation while Durian Emas can be used for a variety of crops.

The biggest challenge facing them are fake brands in the market apart from competition abroad. Fake brands are cheaper and Siti said apart from that, locals don’t see them as equals of the big brands yet.

This coupled with the poor foreign exchange rate plays a part in the overall scheme of things where income is concerned. Siti said this is one of the main areas they are looking into: how to keep prices low and during harsh times like price increases educate the farmers on how not to skim too much on fertilisers as in the end they would be the ones to lose out.

Other companies have been in the market for decades compared to Agro Surge but Siti said this isn’t a problem, more of a challenge they welcome.

"We’re still only in Peninsula so there are lots of markets we haven’t broken into. We need to fight with international brands who’ve been around for almost 100 years. Apart from that, we’re a private company while many countries have government backed companies as well like FGV (Felda Global Ventures Berhad).

"But we enjoy this. We love meeting new clients who mostly tell us they want to see results first. That’s the challenge. So coming here to Maha which is a prestigious platform gives the company a boost as Maha will not simply let anyone participate.

"Their screening process is rigorous and we’re very happy they let us participate. We would like to tell everyone that we are in our booths all day and anyone who comes by will get a briefing and also receive suggestions and a means of communicating with us after the event is over.

"Overall, we’re hoping to meet and talk to many farmers to let them know about our products.”

Maha will run until this Sunday, August 14 at MAEPS Serdang.