Maafahi — a passion project come to life

Having been in service for close to three decades now, Maafahi, since the first few steps taken at its inception in the early 1990s, has been at the forefront in maintaining the viability of local agricultural products within the market while promoting, and innovating, within the sector.

In our first two part 'Business & People' feature segment, we sat down with one of the Directors of the Seagull Group, guiding Maafahi through its varied challenges and goals, Salah Shihab, for his insights on the venture and the industry.

Our first part, this week, focuses on the formative experiences of Maafahi as well as the current status quo of the venture.

The Maldives Financial Review: How did you get into agriculture through Maafahi? 

Salah Shihab: I think it started in the early 90s. The Fisheries Minister of the then Maumoon Government decided to designate some islands for long term fisheries and agriculture development. They put up a handful of islands that were relatively large in size but not exactly suitable for habitation — they were also too large for resort development.

I think that was a visionary thought. 

So that was how we got into this business, it was mostly for the challenge, with a nationalistic interest. Trying to prove that agriculture can be something that can be done in the Maldives. 

We didn’t, at the time, think of agriculture especially as a profit making area. The logic was if fisheries can also be developed together alongside agriculture, the fisheries sector could become highly profitable and then, it could then drive the agriculture component. 

And I still think that for agriculture to be successful on a large scale, it is best if it can be done together with fisheries activities.

MFR: How is Maafahi organised?

Salah Shihab: We got into both in a very enthusiastic way. We got experts involved. We had a highly experienced relative of one of our directors, who supervised the agriculture sector, and he also had some fisheries knowledge. 

Our investments were initially geared towards the very basic things on the fisheries side, while focusing on a variety of agriculture products. 

On fisheries, we concentrated on salted fish & dried Maldives fish — exported to Sri Lanka — and some frozen fish supplied to Malé. We were processing about five to eight tonnes of fish a day at the peak. Unfortunately that was a time when the government was constantly rethinking fisheries policies. Some of the decisions then led to us, unfortunately, being told not to buy beyond a certain amount of fish.

Some other events also diminished our interest in fisheries, such as the challenges of exporting salted and dried fish to Sri Lanka. A fisheries policy came into place, which unfortunately did not favour many private sector ventures from continuing with exports. A somewhat arbitrary price was set, and we had no way of economically buying, processing and selling at this ‘set’ price.

So we gave up on the export sector altogether, and focused on local consumers. This translated to our products, especially smoked, dried fish in some sort of simple value added form, we would sell it to Malé — and visitors from Sri Lanka would often take these, not on a commercial basis, but for personal consumption or gifts. So the volume was very small, compared to what we did earlier.

When we did do this, with packaging setup in Thulusdhoo, it was quite an exciting activity.

MFR: Which would you say are Maafahi’s mainstays in terms of its agricultural offerings?

Salah Shihab: At the moment, among the regular products, the best product is lettuce. Which is now very stable, and which is also to a great extent immune from drastic weather conditions. That helps us keep a year round supply. Although climatic conditions affect the volume of the produce it doesn’t totally drop out, even with the drastic weather we had this year, it survived better than almost everything else. So lettuce would be the key product, we grow about 15 different varieties of lettuce. 

Coconut has very big potential. We started focusing on coconut a little late, but even in the initial stages we did plant a lot of coconut palms. All locally selected nuts from all over the Maldives. It was very well done, with the contribution from Ali Shafeeg, from the Ministry of Agriculture who was also overseeing the project — as a sibling of one of our directors. 

So we imported nuts from Gaaf Alif, Gaaf Dhaal, and Fuvamulah, mainly the south, to sort of introduce varieties that were not common within our region, and the results are quite promising even today. 

We made a few mistakes — obvious in hindsight — we were over-optimistic, but we are making adjustments. We have a very good relationship with a Sri Lankan professor specialising in coconuts, and for most other things, we have a consultant in Australia, who gives us technical support and input. And then it’s up to the manager and team leaders to see through the work day to day. The moment they identify an issue, they report back to the consultants, and we follow their advise. That together, of course, with the support we get from the Ministry of Agriculture, which is also quite valuable and forthcoming. 

We have imported Cavendish tissue culture plants from Sri Lanka, and also the sampa keyo tissue culture — they too have been performing extremely well. It is not easy to import, quarantine and go through all of the motions for plants, but, with the right follow through, we continue with good hopes for banana. 

Papaya has also become synonymous with Maafahi, but unfortunately both bananas and papaya are very prone to local weather. With climate change, it’s becoming extremely challenging, with 90 kilometre winds —  you can imagine — sustained over two to three days in June this year, we lost, without exaggeration, over 2,500 banana plants. The damage, with bunches of banana, exceeds over 1,500. Before that storm, we were bringing to Malé about 200 bunches of mixed varieties of banana per week. Last week, we were able to bring only 25.

MFR: How is the distribution done?  Is it only to Malé?

Salah Shihab: We do supply to resorts. 

I mentioned papaya, banana, coconut, and lettuce, these are the four key products that we have almost year round. Subject to, of course, the weather conditions, the volume can fluctuate greatly. 

We think there is infinite demand for coconut, kurumba, and we are trying to expand that sector. The main challenge is the labour. It’s a very very competitive sector in the whole region. Sri Lanka, India — Kerala — all very big coconut growers, and those skilled in coconut climbing and all things actually, are not easy to get. Even a field worker, is an above average paid worker, but it is something that gives us great hope. And we are continuing with planting coconut. 

Coming back to your question on the customers, about 30 resorts buy our produce. From kurumba to lettuce. I would say lettuce is the most widely distributed Maafahi product as far as wholesale customers goes. On the retail side, almost everything we grow in Maafahi does very well, and is available from our two outlets in Malé. There is no third party retailing of any Maafahi produce in Malé. It’s wholesale to end users or, retail to end users. 

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This feature continues next week, and concludes, in our second part when the focus shifts towards future challenges & potential.