Keepers Of The Spice Trade

From its glory days along trade routes to pantry staples all over the world, spices have become so commonplace that we’ve taken them for granted. For these three trailblazers, however, spice is their livelihood and motivation: Langit Collective working with indigenous rural farming communities in Malaysia; IDH’s Sustainable Spice Initiative; and chef Nak’s one-woman mission to share forgotten Khmer cuisine.

- Priyanka Elhence

Our greatest value is working directly with our farmers. Learning alongside them gave us invaluable knowledge and the ability to create effective solutions that are needs-based.” — Melisa Lim, CMO and co-founder of Langit Collective“

A social enterprise that works with smallholder farmers in rural communities from East Malaysia, the collective is named after the sky in Lun Bawangs’ native language, Buri Tau. Founded in 2015, it was created with the intention of forming a sustainable livelihood for the indigenous farmers of Sabah and Sarawak that is modelled after regenerative agriculture.

It was an idea that came about organically. The team previously worked for a non-profit, coordinating different community-based projects in the Maligan Highlands in Lawas, Sarawak. Having spent so much time in the villages, they were eventually ‘adopted’ by families there and given local names to welcome them into the community.

As of 2020, the collective works with 69 individual farmers—three indigenous farming communities across nine villages—with their biggest partners being the heirloom rice and grains farmers grown by the Lun Bawang people in Sarawak. Other communities they work with include a Bidayuh farmer from Sarawak who grows single-origin and single variety peppercorn and Dusun farmers from Sabah who grow ground ginger. They give the indigenous farming communities access to the wider local, regional and international market.