DQ Farm (est. 1991)

The owners of one of the most established organic shops and restaurants, EcoGreen Organic, came visiting with some of their customers. We don't farm in 'secret' and we don't have 'show' farms.  And we don't believe organic farming should have anything to do with contract farming. WYSIWYG!

 

 

 

 

Here's a group photo.

 

 

 

The owner and head chef of EcoGreen, Sherene with  her daughter Li Hua, up close with our free-range, grassfed chickens.

 

Brig Gen (R) Dato' Adnan, who owns a training camp near DQ Farm and Mr. Wong the owner and CEO of EcoGreen smelling the 8 year old litter which all visitors must submit themselves to.

The food forest with its melor (jasmine) bushes to feed hives of local honey bees.  We have found that imported Italian bees all fall victim to the walit and layang-layang.  But the local honey bees tend to fly lower and are more aggressive than the Italians and survive well in the farm.

 

Stuff that we use in the farm to repel insects, to reduce fungal attacks, to boost the immune system of the chickens and to generally make the farm a place that first time visitors feel 'energised'.

 

A goat was sacrified for Raya Korban yesterday at the farm; in commemoration of Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to the will of God.

Muslims at the farm from Indonesia, Myanmar and Bangladesh participated. Pak Cik Razaly, the farm manager, presided.

The chosen animal was strong, healthy and one of the best in the herd.

It was treated with great respect; gently led rather than pulled or pushed.

Care was taken that it was not stressed, the knife was hidden from its eyes, and it was gently blind-folded and made to face the kiblah.

Recently I saw a program on Astro of an organic farm in the UK where the intention of the owner was to bring urbanites to his farm to experience 'real' life, including the butchering of animals for food as opposed to buying them off the shelf in sanitary packs.

There was a scene where a stunner was used on the cockerel that they were intending to butcher. I could clearly see the suffering and pain the cockerel went through as it was being stunned.

It must be painful and traumatic to be stunned to unconsciousness!

Here, in the farm, I could see very clearly that the animal felt little if any pain at all. In fact a research done by Wilhem Schulze, a professor in veterinary medicine,  in 1978 indicates that ritual slaughtering of animals may be more humane than modern methods.

I am impressed with the respect that was accorded the animal yesterday,  and for this fact alone, in my opinion, we should not participate in modern commercialised meat production as a consumer.