This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 30, 2023 - November 5, 2023

Malaysia has a master plan for agriculture called the National Food Security Master Plan 2021-2025. Unfortunately, it is not publicly accessible, and our attempts to secure a copy only led us to links that set off our laptops’ alerts about unsecured and possibly compromised sites with viruses. Sigh. Big question: why aren’t these important data pieces available publicly?

What we do know about it, judging from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security’s (MAFS) website and other newspaper sources, is that the plan: (i) is to ensure the sustainability of the food supply at all times, especially in the face of unexpected situations; (ii) runs from 2021 to 2025; and (iii) has five cores, 15 strategies and 96 initiatives.

To quote the news reports of the time, “The implementation of the action plan through 15 strategies and 96 initiatives is expected to contribute towards the availability of safe food at affordable prices, increased domestic food production, reduced dependence on food import and foreign manpower use.”

The report explained that the plan encompasses five core strategies: (i) the expansion of the use of technology; (ii) empowering research and studies; (iii) empowerment of food security data; (iv) expansion of strategic collaboration; as well as (v) strengthening the governance of departments and agencies.”

Further, the plan is, “…to strengthen national food security by taking into account issues and challenges along the food supply chain starting from agricultural inputs to food waste”.

What we needed to know was whether there had been increases in production and the self-sufficiency gaps were closed. No word there.

The plan was written during the time when onion prices were yo-yo-ing, which set off worries over the prices of all things, including roti bawang (paratha with onions inside). Since then we have had crises about chicken prices and availability, egg prices and availability, wheat prices (we can’t grow wheat, but we consume a lot of bread), sugar prices (with experts calling for price ceiling abolishment lest the industry collapses due to sharply rising input prices) and currently about rice, when prices of imported white rice had shot up by some 36%, threatening the prices of locally grown white rice and its availability. Why availability? As the tried economics maxim goes, when prices are kept artificially low, via ceiling prices or even subsidies, supply dries out when producers find they can sell elsewhere for higher prices or for faster repayments than when subsidy cheques come in.

These point towards either unanticipated events during the formulation of the plan, or that the plan didn’t cover these factors, which are basically “agricultural inputs”. One is then moved to suggest that a redrawing of the plan is necessary.

One would venture that the overriding priority is for self-sufficiency. That means we grow or rear or catch more than enough of the foods that are important to us, like rice, of which we produce only 60% to 70% of our annual consumption (depending on whose numbers one believes) of onions, chillies, chicken, eggs, beef, fish, bean sprouts, kangkong, and so on. This also means that we do the same for the food or nutrition for these categories such as corn (for chicken feed and the resultant eggs) and for fertiliser. Malaysia imported 194,595 tonnes of fertilisers in 2021 (re: Knoema). Surely we can generate our own fertiliser, no?

This opens up another can of worms that one must not flinch from addressing, that is having enough land for growing. This is a complicated matter as land matters are under the purview of the states, and the current issues concerning land, such as actual ownership of hereditary lands and native lands have vexed the states for centuries.

As it is, according to the MAFS website, there are 103,563ha of idle land in Peninsular Malaysia alone. Imagine if that were all paddy land. It is in 46,832 lots, and each lot would be on average 2.21ha. The 103,563ha could theo­retically, at the current paddy yield of some 3,800kg per hectare, produce some 394,000 tonnes of rice, about half of what Malaysia imports in a year.

That figure brings us to another question. What are the minimum agriculture plot sizes per crop type that can not only meet the cost of planting that crop plus giving the farmer an income above not only the poverty line income, but enough to keep him incentivised to work the land? Let’s say it is RM5,000 a month, or RM60,000 per year. Casual observation would already show that most farmers have small plot sizes, limited perhaps by what they could manually work in the past, but in this age where machinery in farming is already ubiquitous, there is no reason for physical capacity to be a factor. Still, the 2.21ha of idle land per average plot as per above speaks volumes of how small these plots are.

The same goes for rearing cattle, where one calculates the number of head of cattle to be the “revenue” as compared to the costs of having his farm, and how large a piece of land he needs to house his cattle.

This kind of knowledge is what farmers typically need before they venture out. It would be great if it is continually imparted by the authorities to current farmers and new entrants. With such a system up and running, new knowledge, for instance, how to boost yield, new seeds, new methods of irrigation and so on can also be imparted, and a dialogue on issues that farmers and breeders face can be set up.

Coming from Louisiana State University Agricultural and Mechanical College (LSU’s real name), I was exposed to many things agricultural. Indeed, our Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), formerly Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, sends many students there. One of the things I observed was that farmers looked towards the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (Comex or “Merc”) for guidance of what to grow or rear in the coming agricultural season. Comex trades wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, orange juice, rapeseed, milk, sugar, robusta coffee, live cattle and lean hogs, among others. With futures prices as a guide, farmers and rearers can decide on what would help them in planting and rearing, with an aim to secure the futures prices at harvest time, be it three months, six months, or even a year. The larger farms even pre-sell their harvest into these futures contracts.

In conclusion, in envisioning a new agricultural setting, one needs to anchor the plan in a priority target. In that, one can find few more important targets than self-sufficiency. A nation needs to be fed. The question of whether one can reduce agriculture locally to use those freed resources in money generating ventures, such as in cash generating crops for export, is a dangerous one, as global shortages, a weak currency and skyrocketing prices can leave a nation in hunger. In these financially and climate uncertain times, one must be able to look after one’s own.

Huzaime Hamid is chairman and CEO of Ingenium Advisors, Malaysia’s financial macroeconomics advisory

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