Malaysia spends RM13bil annually on imported foodstuff like fish, meat, potatoes, fruits, onions and vegetables. Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has called on the people to save this huge import bill by planting cash crops at home on idle land. The Minister echoed earlier calls by government and community leaders on food security for Malaysia. The food import bill quoted by the Minister was much lower than earlier figures released for 2008 which hit RM35 billion; 3 times the figure the domestic trade minister quoted.

This issue is now becoming more and more urgent as the global food production system is under threat from a multiple of threats including bad weather phenomenon resulting in crop failures. The era of cheap food is coming to an end; consumers’ worldwide will have to get used to high prices of food, which could now increase their percentage spent on food from the past 10% to 30-40%, especially for the lower income group. Food security is now fast rising to become a national security issue.

From rice to onions, Malaysia is a net importer of food. We are especially vulnerable given rising demand for food import in the emerging economies with huge population. China, India and the other Brics economies will pose upward pressure on food prices worldwide given their increasingly affluence and the need for food security domestically. Droughts; lack of water, natural disaster and other pollution issues have greatly impaired food production at home. There is nothing more important that for each country and its businesses to think seriously about being self-reliant on their own domestic food production.

The Goodness of Nature

Malaysia is very well blessed with good climatic conditions, which helps plants to grow well. Our abundance sunshine and rainfall are the perfect nutrients for plants; there is really no reason why we can’t be self sufficient in our food production. While there is an urgent need to modernize our domestic food production system; where effort may take a while; Pahlawan feels that we should get the public’s support and attention to support our existing farmers so that they continue to sustain their effort towards higher quality food production.

The State of our farming sector.

Just take the Green Leafy Vegetable (GLV) Production is Malaysia as an example; it is suffering from backwardness in operation technology. Some 1000 small farmers produce green leafy vegetables in the Malaysian market with farm size ranging from 5-10 acres; their production is almost completely done by hand labor, supported by single purpose tractors and harvesters. Vegetables are grown in traditional farms with no attention paid to food hygiene or food safety. Produce are harvested and processed in unhygienic conditions and transported to wholesale markets where 30-40% of the produce can be thrown away.

Because of the low understanding of precision farming technology; plants are left to grow naturally; with water and fertilizers applied as a matter of routine, often the quantity of water and nutrients applied are sporadic and cannot be precisely controlled. To achieve greater weight and higher income, the green leafy reaching the market are old and not at their best for human consumption, actually a substantial percentage gets thrown away in the city as waste furthering add on to our garbage load. There is also concern with chemical fertilizer and pesticide residues.

Need to Support Domestic Farmers

Farmland in the West coast of Malaysia for vegetables had suffered decline from the 44,000 hectares in 2008 to 38,000 hectares; Malaysia produces some 800,000 tons of a basket of vegetables; with 400,000 being green leafys.

The immediate challenge is the traditional farmers are growing old; the young generation has low to no interest in farming. More and more land in the west coast is converted to housing and other more high yielding land use; these multiple of factors are contributing to the decline in acreage for green leafy vegetables. The distribution is set up in such a way that the farmer who does the most work gets less than 1/3 of the final retail price and supply and demand conditions are not fully coordinated; resulting in farmers not getting paid when the market experience over supply of a certain crop species.

These developments and trends work against Malaysia’s quest for food security. Given the world’s supply condition of food; it is becoming more and more urgent for a tropical country with abundant sunlight and water to examine food production for own security. Given Malaysia’s natural advantage in food production; its abundance of sunlight and heavy rainfall are perfect for the cultivation.

Take the green leafy vegetable category; Malaysia should at least strive to cater to its domestic needs of 400,000 tons a year. Malaysians consume about 42 kg per capita of green leafy vegetables—it is low compared to the 45 kg per capita for Singapore while China has over 100 kg per capita. Consumption of green leafy is expected to see an upward trend due to preferences for healthier living and concern for the environment. We all know that its takes 20 kgs of grain and water to produce 1 kg of animal protein; given our concern for emission of C02 and other gases; support vegetable production and consumption is critical to our own sustainable living.

COMMUNITY EFFORT

Malaysians must work together to ensure our own food security.

1.        It is therefore very important that we support our farmers so they continue to farm in an efficient manner to achieve low cost, high yield and high quantity. Pahlawan Volunteers will lead an effort to support our local farmers in the following ways:

a.          We will work with other relevant community groups and organizations to provide a direct market so that farmers’ produce can reach the consumer more directly; where consumers can now enjoy cheaper and higher quality food and farmers get paid more and have better market information so that no unnecessary over supply condition will arise.

b.          We will provide a link to the outstanding good farmers among us so that they can help other farmers or potential farmers to enter farming for food production. Farming or to be more accurate, agri-business takes a lot of scientific knowledge and management know how. There are many owners of idle land of substantial size that can be used for food production; however on their own; they can best become a “hobby farmer” and it is impossible for them to achieve efficiency or productivity. It takes community effort. We hope to connect those farmers with good track record with owners of land who want to work in partnership with these farmers.

We have intensified our search and will begin to profile the good farmers and inform consumers how you can access their produce in this column.

Foong Wai Fong, Pat Lu, Su Chin Hock

Photo Gallery: Pahlawan Foong Wai Fong, Su Chin Hock and Pat Lu visiting Farmer Lee Myuan Hin’s Long Ei Plantations in Melaka  More on how to obtain produce from Long Ei Plantations later.