Malaysia needs to revamp the way it addresses food production if it serious about achieving food security.
After four Agricultural Policies, including the latest National Agrofood Policy (2011 – 2020), the agriculture sector still lags behind the manufacturing, food and ICT sectors.
This is in spite of having dedicated agencies for agriculture and volumes of research data and output from their research centres and universities. For example, local rice production has stagnated in the last 30 years and between 2016 to 2018, rice production decreased by 6.20 percent.
Today, Malaysia imports between 30 to 40 per cent of its rice consumption mainly from Vietnam, India and Thailand. Among the questions are why half the hectarage of available paddy fields are left idle and why new strains that produce high quality grains and innovations in fertilisers and culture systems from decades of research, failed to enhance production.
At the same time, almost 100 per cent of raw materials such soybean meal, fishmeal and corn meal needed to support the feed industry for livestock and fish culture are imported. In the case of poultry and fish, between 2016 to 2018 saw a paltry increase of 1.96 percent in poultry production and a 15.61 and 1.41 percent decrease in aquaculture and wild fish landings, respectively.
Our inability to increase self sufficiency in rice production and reliance on imported raw materials and protein staples leave us vulnerable. Indeed a crisis now looms as the WHO and WTO issued warnings recently of an impending food crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the possibility that governments will impose export restrictions on food supplies which will impact food security of importing countries.
The establishment of a Cabinet Committee on Food Security, though timely, may not suffice. The agenda should be spearheaded by an independent Council on Food Security comprising of high level experts on food production, economists, social scientists and the industry. This is due to the interconnectedness between food production, environmental sustainability, economics, entrepreneurship, rural development as well as research and development.
Research, for example, is currently carried out by agencies in the several ministries of agriculture, higher education, as well as science and technology. The dots still remain to be connected regarding what foods/products to focus on, what technologies to develop or translated for large scale testing, and what socio-economics to study.
There is also our readiness to use artificial intelligence and Big Data for smart farming on a scale than can elevate the agriculture sector. Thus, the council will be responsible for making recommendations on all matters related to food such as food supply, crop diversification, food reserves, and evaluation of technologies, including funding for research.
Although there is no shortage of food, disruptions in the food supply chain began to emerge as the crisis unfolded but these were resolved speedily because online shopping became a lifeline. However, the pandemic also saw the emergence of a new group of families who lack the financial resources to buy food due to the abrupt loss of employment and income.
Hence, although there was technically no problem about food supply, the same cannot be said about access to and affordability of food. In other words, in spite of the availability of sufficient food, there are segments of society who experienced food insecurity. This insecurity existed prior to the pandemic, merely underscored its potential severity.
Indeed, children in food insecure households are prone to suffer not only health related problems but run a greater risk of developmental and educational delays. Therefore, the proposed National Council for Food Security must make a distinction between the production of affordable and sufficient food staples such as rice, fish and poultry
for internal consumption versus the production of high value food for trade.
It needs to take cognisance of factors such as demographic trends and diversity, job preferences, infrastructure, access as well as availability of labour, water and land resources, and be designed within a Malaysian context to ensure the issue of food insecurity is appropriately addressed.
Ultimately, what is needed is high level political commitment and prioritisation to produce food economically that will accommodate the food secure and food insecure members of our society. This should be Malaysia's agricultural new normal.
Prof. Datuk Roshada is from the Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) while Noor Khalidah is from the School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times