LETTERS: MALAYSIA is blessed with seven million hectares of arable land but unable to feed its population of 33 million.
About 77 per cent of the land are planted with cash crops, oil palm and rubber.
Seventy-four per cent of agricultural land are planted with oil palm (5.85 million hectares are oil palm land) while 13 per cent are planted with rubber (out of one million hectares of rubber land).
The cash crops are those planted for export and the proceeds are used to import food. The food import bill from 120 countries stands at a hefty RM52 billion.
Chillies are imported from India and Vietnam. Bananas come from Thailand and the Philippines. Onions are sourced from India and Pakistan.
Things that can be produced to feed the people are not being produced.
The recent suspension of onion exports by India has taught us a lesson. Malaysia must not be dependent on food imports and must produce its own food. There are many negative consequences of over-dependence on importation of food.
FIRST, it may lead to inflation. Venezuela is a good example for being too dependent on oil. It neglected its agriculture and its inflation rate was one million per cent in 2018.
The other consequence of over-dependence on food imports is the impact of depreciation in currency value.
Venezuela experienced this in 2018 when its curency dropped in value by 96 per cent because of this over-dependence on food imports.
Similarly, the import bill of Malaysia will increase and debts will rise.
Finally, we will give away employment opportunities to other nations that export agricultural goods.
Agriculture provides job opportunities to Malaysians such as agricultural marketers, engineers, planners, production analysts, financial analysts, teachers, farmers, agricultural managers, agriculture extension service agents and cooperative officers.
By importing food, it means we are giving these agricultural jobs to other nations.
There are several ways to develop our food and agriculture system. The first is to develop the interest of young people in agriculture.
The United States promotes 4H Clubs (for youth aged 10 to 21) to nurture children and encourage them to grow crops.
The US Department of Agriculture designates millions of annual Cooperative Extension Programme dollars for the regional “youth development” initiatives.
The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture provided US$68 million to fund 4H Clubs to develop youth farmers in 2015.
Cash prizes for competitions were awarded to the winners of youth farmers who cultivated crops and raised animals.
University researchers partnered with county school superintendents throughout the Midwest and South and initiated corn, tomato and other crop clubs for children.
Agriculture subjects must be taught from primary school and right up to secondary school and tertiary levels.
Set up agriculture departments at every university in every state to train young people to love agriculture.
Give technical advice to farmers and research the cost of production for crops, marketing and financing. Train more people to serve in the agriculture sector.
SECOND, develop extension services.
In Malaysia, the extension services in the university and the Department of Agriculture are weak.
Extension service experts are important and are required to transfer the technology created by agriculture technology institutions (in the universities and in the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute ) to the farmers.
The Department of Agriculture should have more experts in extension services to bring technology from MARDI to farmers.
Universiti Putra Malaysia(UPM) should train experts in extension service to work in universities and the Department of Agriculture.
UPM can design short courses (of four weeks’ duration) for farmers, and develop diploma, bachelor and post-graduate programmes in agriculture.
THIRD, develop unused land. Unutilised state land can be rented at a nominal fee to small-scale farmers to produce food for the nation.
Small-scale farmers should also be subsidised by the government and crop insurance should be provided to them to encourage them to stay in the farms in rural areas to produce food.
In the United Kingdom, every farmer is subsidised with £1,750 per month to keep working in farms in rural areas.
DR LEE WEN CHIAT
School of Economics, Finance and Banking,Universiti Utara Malaysia
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times