There is still argument over why we have failed to deliver food security in this country.
With the current inflation, economists predict gloomy times ahead if the issues of high fuel and food costs are not addressed.
Going by the forecasts made by experts, the oil price is not going to decrease anytime soon.
Food prices will follow suit, because moving food around will incur higher logistics costs.
And, with the Russia-Ukraine war not showing any sign of abating, the situation continues to look grim for all.
The only consolation for us is that we still produce and sell oil.
The revenue gained from the high oil price has helped cushion the impact on the nation's coffers.
However, much of the coffers have also been drained to fund the fuel subsidy.
The issue of fuel subsidy abuse has resurfaced, as the blanket subsidy apparently benefited not just Malaysians, but others involved in smuggling at our porous borders.
Though some have called for a more targeted subsidy, implementing this is as not straightforward as some might think.
Subsidising food prices has also been problematic.
Apart from the high cost of animal feed driving up chicken prices, the price of cooking oil is also impacting the cost of cooked food.
We as a nation have always been addicted to fried food.
With the skyrocketing price of edible oil in the world market also partly due to the war in Ukraine, we are fortunate since we are a net exporter of edible oil.
Palm oil companies — including small farmers — are reaping the benefits of high cooking oil prices worldwide, yet the price of domestic cooking oil had to be capped to avoid high food inflation.
Again, we resort to subsidising. Again, we have to deal with abuses of subsidies. It is a dilemma.
Many have spoken about the urgent need for us to review our agriculture policy.
We may need to revisit the strategy, as the earlier policy had always emphasised import substitution.
This has been driven by the need to reduce our ballooning food import bill, which has now exceeded RM50 billion a year.
It may be time for us to change the strategy from import to exports.
The reason why palm oil is doing so well is because it is export-driven.
Our neighbour Thailand is a good example of a country which has long practised export-driven agriculture.
When I was studying in the United States years ago, we were able to buy frozen petai and even durian in New York food stores.
And, they have managed to keep up with that robust export momentum ever since.
Why are we not exporting agriculture as aggressively as Thailand?
Many have raised such questions before, but the response has been timid.
We know there have been attempts to ramp up our agriculture export drive.
However, apart from palm oil, sustaining such an effort has been problematic.
Why?
Are our farmers not sufficiently motivated? Is our export system dysfunctional?
Why has our rice-planting subsidy failed to close the self-sufficiency gap?
We need to urgently revisit these questions and be honest with what has gone wrong with our agriculture policy.
In Thailand, the farmers' cooperatives work well.
This may be the secret recipe behind the country's agriculture export success.
The other point about farmers' cooperatives in Thailand is that the farmers themselves are in charge of running it.
It is, unfortunately, not the same here.
If we are serious about making a success of cooperatives here, we must do the same.
Otherwise, it will be the same story about failure again.
The writer is a professor at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy, UCSI University
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times