KUALA LUMPUR: The Agriculture and Food Industries Ministry (MAFI) is putting more programmes in motion after a year of successful initiatives despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its minister Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee said 2020 was nothing short of challenges, with each ministry shouldering the responsibility of weathering the adversity by taking measures and actions within their respective capacities.
Shortly after the Movement Control Order (MCO) was announced in March last year, consumers faced a shortage of food supplies and farmers had an excess production of fresh produce.
This prompted the ministry to establish 'Pasar Segar Terkawal' (PST) in 196 selected locations nationwide and use the e-commerce platform through strategic cooperation with companies like Shopee, Lazada, MyGrocer, AirAsia (OURSHOP/OURFARM), Dropee and others.
"March 11 marked the one-year anniversary since I led the ministry, along with my deputies, Datuk Seri Ahmad Hamzah and Datuk Che Abdullah Mat Nawi.
"It has been challenging for the three of us as the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and the agro-food industry was facing huge difficulties, especially during the initial stage of the MCO.
"However, with the cooperation of the relevant quarters, we managed to ensure sufficient and stable supplies to the people despite the disruption to the flow of the supply chain, namely, production, distribution and retail process for agriculture products and food industry (due to the pandemic)," he said in an interview, adding that the agriculture and food industry sectors were allowed to operate as usual since the implementation of the MCO.
He said the ministry had since worked on achieving its goals, by establishing the Food Security Cabinet Committee (FSCC) chaired by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the first of such committees formed under the Perikatan Nasional government.
The committee is responsible for scrutinising issues related to food security and preparing the National Food Security Framework, which is drafted based on the latest food security concept published by Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.
In increasing padi yield and earnings for farmers, he said the ministry had embarked on the development of the country's padi land profiling with an overall size of 350,000ha to better formulate padi fertiliser subsidies and padi data management system called Smart Paddy.
"The ministry has also implemented the Large-scale Smart Padi Field Programme (Smart SBB) through public-private partnership involving 150,000ha land in the peninsula to boost production and increase farmers' revenue.
"The government does not use public coffers for this initiative as the costs are borne by industry players that have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
"Smart SBB will help in ensuring a more systematic structure of the industry players, particularly in minimising and getting rid of the involvement of middlemen who have caused a huge earning gap, as well as improve the production and distribution of rice in the country.
"The implementation of Smart SBB will see changes to the padi and rice industry landscape as the government's goal is in guaranteeing food security at all times."
He said the ministry had boosted its distribution of Certified Padi Seeds (BPS) and set its ceiling price at RM35 per bag (20kg) to prevent manipulation of BPS and prices, with the National Farmers Organisation (Nafas) appointed as the sole distributor.
Such initiatives, he said, which were taken to keep sales of BPS and rice in check and prevent monopoly by suppliers, had benefited some 320,000 padi farmers in the peninsula.
Meanwhile, he said hill padi farming in Sabah and Sarawak had received a boost to allow biannual yield, through a RM350 million allocation under 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP), with RM159 million having been spent so far, while the remaining RM191 million was incorporated into the 12th Malaysia Plan.
To provide assistance and social protection for fishermen, the Self-employed Social Security Scheme under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) was implemented, benefiting 42,000 people so far, while the monthly allowance (Elaun Sara Hidup) for fishermen was increased from RM250 to RM300.
Meanwhile, the allowance for freshwater fishermen was increased from RM200 to RM250, he said.
To reduce the cost of living, especially for the B40 income group in urban and suburban areas, he said the ministry had launched the Urban Farming (Kebuniti) initiative with an allocation of RM30 million.
He said Kebuniti had benefited 13,524 people and 632 communities and the programme would be continued this year with Kebuniti 2.0.