13mp Agriculture Food Security Need Holistic Focus

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Food security is quite a topical subject now after the disruption in the global grain supply chain, the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and climate change, which is increasingly impacting many nations.
A few countries are talking about banning rice exports in view of the uncertainty in the supply chain environment in the coming few years.
Whatever the situation may unfold in the next few years, it is quite timely that we evaluate and appraise the situation, lest we are caught unprepared or we may be late in our policy responses.
Realising this concern, recently, the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) held a brown bag seminar or a focus group discussion (FGD), if you may, on the subject, to appraise and assess the issue.
ADSFor this, we invited Larrie Wong and Khairudin Mokhtar, personalities who have much direct experience in agriculture planning and implementation. They made interesting observations and brought some focus to the subject matter.
If we are to consider palm oil as food, there is every likelihood that Malaysia is a net food exporter by virtue of our large palm oil exports. With the interest in vegetable oil, palm oil has a strong long-term position vis-à-vis animal-based oil.
This position could be taken advantage of in our negotiations with other food exporters who also need vegetable oil. We can trade palm oil for rice in order to strengthen our food security position.
Secondly, we should not focus entirely on rice as the main constituent of food security. Till now, we were more concerned with achieving self-sufficiency in rice, defined as having about 70-75 percent of national rice requirements, the remainder being from import sources.
For this purpose, we tried as much to produce locally up to the 70-75 percent level, and we even used price support subsidy so as to encourage padi farmers to grow padi. This measure is not very efficient as it encourages rice smuggling into the country.
Other sources of carbohydrate
The speakers mentioned that it is timely that Malaysia encourages the production of other sources of carbohydrate such as tapioca, sweet potatoes, maize and sago. These are complex carbohydrates, which are more nutritious than white rice.
The third perspective that Wong stated is the possibility of food wastage and food loss. This matter is significant, especially during festivities like the puasa month and Hari Raya. It must be a pertinent concern that they decided to acknowledge the issue.
The bigger issue of strengthening the agriculture sector and the livelihood of the farmers was also mentioned. The sector, which is largely defined as covering on-farm activities only, is connected to many subsectors such as manufacturing, marketing and milling and trade, as well as transportation.
The relationship is positive, although the degree of linkage varies according to the intensity of the manufacturing activities with the other sectors. If the current share of agriculture in total output is about 6-7 percent, in total, in reality, it can be about 13-14 percent, having regard for its contribution to the other sectors mentioned earlier.
In any case, the contribution of the sector to total employment is more than its share of output.
The need to enhance agricultural enterprises and the future of farmers demands much more policy attention and new programmes based on technology and markets out there.
ADSFarmers’ productivity must depend not only on production but also on post-production activities, which appear to be more income-earning than just dependent on production.
‘Farm enterprise model’
Khairudin suggested Malaysia emulate the situation in Indonesia and Thailand in harnessing the full potential of technology for the farmers and their farms.
Malaysia once had this “farm enterprise model” to help the farmers, but the efforts were not sustained enough. Agriculture is a form of business and needs to be planned and managed as such.
In this regard, technology can be increasingly adopted in our agriculture sector, especially among crops which are of high return and modern in nature.
We have heard talks about urban farming, vertical farming, and new crops, such as figs, practised in our country, which can be further attended to with policy and assistance as sources of employment and income to rural households.
Hopefully, agriculture receives much attention during this 13th Malaysia Plan period, both in terms of new policies and financial allocations.
Indeed, if carefully supported and planned, the agriculture sector can help address our food security objective, rural income enhancement to eliminate poverty, and help reduce income imbalances between sectors.
The Madani philosophy of economic and social development is embedded deeply in addressing poverty and markedly in the reduction of economic imbalances.
MIER will continue to deliberate on this matter and provide suggestions to the policy makers so as to ensure the concerns are adequately addressed in the years to come. - Mkini
SULAIMAN MAHBOB is an adjunct professor at the International Institute of Public Policy and Management, Universiti Malaya, and executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER).
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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