Now you see them, now you don't. Malaysia appears to be facing a food crisis of sorts.
As this Leader goes to press, it is a story of dwindling supply of eggs, chicken and cooking oil. The situation is bad enough for empty egg crates to be turned into backdrops for politicians on the campaign trail. We won't be surprised if chicken and cooking oil join the list.
But the threat of the list growing to include other foods can't be ruled out. Start with the shortage of eggs. Like many in Malaysia, egg-ache is a pain that has been searching for a cure for the longest time.
Our point is this: the people who are supposed to cure this have had all the time to look for a long-term solution. But they are more than happy to be on a moment-to-moment mode. So we have an inflation task force, but not a food security task force. Anyway, what can a task force do?
Start with eggs. It has an old backstory. A dozen years ago, there were 374 layer farms that produced about eight million eggs per day. In the last three years, increasing cost of production due to Covid-19 and other factors have left us with approximately 300 layer farms. Farmers were telling the government that their business wasn't sustainable without subsidies.
Early this year, the layer farms told the government that it cost them 43 sen to produce an egg. Yet the government imposed a ceiling price of 37 sen, with 3 sen per egg as subsidy. Not wanting to lose 3 sen for every egg they produced, the farmers began slaughtering the chicken early. Early this month, the caretaker government relented and upped the subsidy to 10 sen. But subsidies aren't going to make the problem go away. We need a long-term solution. The farmers are pressing for the government to deregulate the egg prices. This has its own danger.
Consumers will be at the mercy of profiteering producers. Expect eggs to no longer be the cheapest protein should the government agree to float the prices of eggs. Layer farms, too, may have to seriously think about their current business model. Perhaps there is a solution there.
For the government, there is one long-term solution to consider. Chicken feed — maize and soya bean meal — is costly because much of it is imported. The government should step in to help grow an alternative chicken feed industry. Oil palm kernel waste meal is a good start. At the moment, palm kernel cakes are being exported to European cattle farmers.
In May, the Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry said it would urgently consider making them available to the local poultry industry. It has been almost six months now and the industry is still waiting for the palm kernel cakes to head its way.
Perhaps "urgently" means different things to different people. The price of chicken, too, is becoming unaffordable to many even at a ceiling price of RM9.40 a kg. The backstory is the same as the one for eggs: chicken feed. Solve this and you solve the chicken and egg problem. But that still leaves us with the here-today-gone-tomorrow cooking oil problem.
The moral of the story is this: take a long view of things, not an instant remedy for the here and now. Give it a think.