Southeast Asia’s young farmers dig in for the future in ‘call to return to the land’

A typical day for Aizat Halim begins at 5am, as he sets out on a drive to his fruit farm in Janda Baik, about 50km (30 miles) from his home in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur – a distance that reflects the gap between his current and former lives. Farming, the 31-year-old said, was always his first career choice, despite graduating in marketing from colleges in the US and the United Kingdom. In 2020, he started a pineapple farm on family land, leaving a cushy air-conditioned job as a marketing...