KUALA LUMPUR: A national policy on corn farming is being formulated, as part of the government's efforts to reduce the country's dependency on animal feed imports, the Dewan Negara was told today.
Agriculture and Food Industries Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee said this was following the surge in prices of animal feed, which had led to price hikes on poultry products.
"We didn't have such a policy to promote corn farming as importing the product, a component of animal feed, was much cheaper back then. The costs of (importing) corn now are too high.
"National policies like padi farming that have been implemented for years, had helped reduce dependency on imports despite it being cheaper to import rice at the time," he said in reply to a question from Senator Datuk Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid.
Ronald said the implementation of the policy would see large-scale projects to encourage involvement of the private sector and government-linked companies (GLCs).
He said other measures to reduce imports of agriculture products included Large-Scale Smart Padi Field (SMART SBB) for padi farming, which aimed at increasing the country's self-sufficiency level (SSL) for rice to 75 per cent; and establishing the National Ruminant Board and implementation of the National Dairy Industry Development Strategic Plan (Dairy Plan) to drive targeted ruminant industry growth and increase SSL for beef from 50 per cent to 100 per cent by 2025.
Other measures are upgrading infrastructure, amenities and facilities, increasing utilisation of modern technology; supporting modernisation and smart farming; as well as boosting Research, Development, Commercialisation and Innovation (RDCI).
He said the ministry would continue to emphasise on the strategies in improving food supplies in the country with the implementation of the National Agrofood Policy 2021-2030 (DAN 2.0) and National Food Security Policy Action Plan 2021-2025.
Earlier, Ronald said several measures were taken to mitigate the effects of climate change on local agriculture.
They included the application of climate-based technology and automation, while emphasising on reducing the release of greenhouse gas and strengthening food security data to assess and monitor food security levels, which included the effects of climate change on the agri-food sector.
Others are increasing efforts in RDCI for alternative farming and new innovation through Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) to minimise the impact of climate change in farming of fruits like pineapple, papaya, jackfruit and durian; and vegetables.
"The effects of climate change are becoming more apparent in the past five years between 2017 and 2021, where 40,828ha of padi fields in the peninsula were destroyed during floods, while fruit, vegetable and crop farms on some 1,944.57ha lands were damaged due to drought.
"The ministry, with the cooperation of Agrobank, had created the Agrofood Protection Takaful Scheme to fulfil the needs of the agri-food community affected by income uncertainties due to natural disasters, climate change, diseases and others," he said in reply to a question from Senator Datuk Nelson Renganathan.
Ronald said the ministry would continue working with the Environment and Water Ministry to ensure the planning and implementation of strategies under the agri-food sector were in line with climate change policies at the national and international levels.