CAMERON HIGHLANDS, Oct 25 (Bernama) -- The Cameron Highlands Farmers Association has aborted its plan to dump cabbage as a protest following falling price said to be due to the surplus import of the vegetable.

Its secretary Chay Ee Mong said the decision followed the Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority's (Fama) quick action to buy up the highland cabbage at the market price to assist the affected farmers.

Chay said the association appreciated Fama's commitment to solving the problem by buying up the cabbage from the farmers at 60 sen per kg from Thursday.

And from Sunday, Fama is buying the cabbage from the farmers at 75 sen per kg.

The offer to the farmers was made by Fama director-general Datuk Mohamed Shariff Abdul Aziz at a dialogue with the association in Brinchang here.

Early this week, the association had voiced its plan to dump cabbage at the Fama office here to protest the price drop to 30 sen per kg due to excess imported cabbage.

Mohamed Shariff said besides increasing the price from 60 sen to 75 sen per kg, Fama would also take some immediate measures to prevent the price of cabbage from falling further.

He said a special committee involving Fama, the association's representatives and farmers would be formed to monitor local cabbage output while efforts would also be made to prevent the excess import of cabbage.

"Fama will study the number of approved permits for import of cabbage and if supply from Cameron Highlands is more than usual, then the import should be reduced," he said.

Also present at the dialogue was Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and Cameron Highlands member of parliament, Datuk S.K. Deevamany.

-- BERNAMA