Strawberry and Vegetable Farms in Cameron Highlands
Part of the Cameron Highlands travel guide — see every topic in All Cameron Highlands Guides.
The Cameron Highlands supplies a large share of peninsular Malaysia's temperate vegetables and almost all its strawberries, because it is one of very few places in the country cool enough to grow them. Terraced farms and plastic-covered greenhouses cover the hillsides between the tea estates, growing cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, capsicum, cut flowers and strawberries. Several open to visitors with pick-your-own operations, cafes and shops, and they are the most popular family activity in the highlands.
Strawberry farms
A dozen or so farms around Brinchang and Tanah Rata grow strawberries hydroponically under cover and open to visitors. Pick-your-own costs by weight, typically 30–60 ringgit a kilo, which is expensive by any standard and is the price of novelty in a tropical country. Most also sell strawberry jam, chocolate-dipped berries, ice cream, milkshakes and an alarming range of strawberry-branded souvenirs. It is unashamedly commercial and children love it. Big Red Strawberry Farm and Raaju Hill are among the better-organised operations.
The vegetable industry
The serious agriculture is vegetables, and it is the highlands' main economy after tourism: cabbage, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, capsicum, spring onions and herbs, grown on terraced slopes and under plastic and trucked to the lowlands daily. The Kea Farm market above Brinchang is where much of it is sold to visitors, along with fruit, flowers, honey and jams — a long roadside strip that generates severe traffic congestion at weekends. The scale of the plastic sheeting across the hillsides is startling from any viewpoint.
Flowers, bees and the rest
Cut-flower nurseries grow roses, chrysanthemums and orchids for the domestic market and several open to visitors. The Cactus Valley and Rose Valley gardens near Brinchang are terraced display gardens aimed squarely at photographs. The Ee Feng Gu honey bee farm has hives, an explanation of the operation and a shop. The Butterfly Farm keeps butterflies, insects and reptiles. None of these is exceptional individually; together they make an easy half day, particularly with children.
The environmental question
It is worth knowing that the highlands' agriculture is contentious. Land clearing for farms has caused deforestation on steep slopes, and the region has suffered repeated landslides and sedimentation of the Ringlet reservoir; illegal clearing has been the subject of enforcement operations and public argument for years. The heavy use of plastic sheeting and agrochemicals in a water catchment is a live concern. Visitors are not going to resolve this, but it is the context behind the greenhouses that cover the hills.
Strawberry and Vegetable Farms at a glance
| Why here | One of the few places in Malaysia cool enough for temperate crops |
|---|---|
| Pick-your-own strawberries | RM 30–60 per kilo |
| Main crop | Vegetables — cabbage, lettuce, tomato, capsicum |
| Roadside market | Kea Farm, above Brinchang — heavy weekend traffic |
| Also | Flower nurseries, bee farm, cactus and rose gardens |
| Context | Land clearing and landslides are a long-running controversy |