KUALA LUMPUR: The Plantation and Commodities Ministry is currently examining a model to consolidate and unify rubber smallholders into clusters of 500 to 1,000 hectares to increase rubber production capacity and reduce costs.
In a parliamentary written reply, its minister, Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, said the model will involve three levels of the rubber industry value chain: upstream, midstream, and downstream.
He added that the proposed clusters are expected to be implemented in three states with high concentrations of uncultivated areas: Kelantan (34,621 ha), Kedah (24,058 ha), and Pahang (19,481 ha).
"The ministry is aware of 420,000 hectares of rubber trees that have matured but have yet to be tapped due to a lack of tappers and the low price of rubber.
"Hence, through the concept of clustering, the marketing chain can be shortened, whereby rubber processing factories purchase rubber directly from the smallholder clusters, consequently providing more favourable prices to the smallholders," said the ministry.
The ministry said this in response to a question from Datuk Awang Hashim (PN-Pendang), who asked about plans to increase the number of tapped estates and the short- and long-term strategies to enhance rubber productivity and help tappers earn higher incomes.
The ministry also noted that 93 percent of the 1.1 million ha of rubber estate area in the country are made up of rubber smallholders, while the remaining seven percent are estates.
"Meanwhile, a total of 217,000 smallholders are involved in natural rubber production in Malaysia, with 195,000 active smallholders renewing their Rubber Transaction Authority Permit every three years.
"However, I would like to emphasise that the government does not intend to increase the size of the plantations. Instead, we want to focus on efforts to increase natural rubber production from the existing rubber trees by introducing policies to encourage more tappers."
Malaysia produced 348,000 tonnes of natural rubber in 2023, compared to 377,000 tonnes in 2022. The country also imported 1.16 million tonnes of natural rubber worth RM7.2 billion in 2022.