This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 12, 2024 - August 18, 2024

Lim Ser Kwee, 63, has worked on his pineapple and corn farms in Johor since childhood. The harvest depends on the weather. Unfortunately, he has observed the weather fluctuating between hot and cold more frequently. Over the decades, he and other farmers have had no choice but to work with the changing weather patterns.

“The weather here can get scarily hot. Sometimes, it’s extreme heat, and then it rains. It’s hot and it’s cold. That’s not very ideal for us farmers,” he says. Lim is also chairman of the Federation of Vegetable Farmers Association.

Another observation he has made is that crops sometimes take longer to mature and have shorter harvestable periods. Even when the crops are harvestable, their life span is shorter than usual.

Weather unpredictability affects the sowing stage, he says. “The rain can be unexpected. So, if we dig holes for the seeds in the morning and it rains suddenly in the evening, the holes get covered and muddy.” Some of the seeds may fail to germinate in this condition, resulting in financial loss for farmers.

While the weather in Simpang Renggam has been relatively favourable this month, allowing for a good harvest, the El Niño phenomenon in April saw crops wilting in the sun, Lim shares.

El Niño is a climate pattern that occurs every two to seven years on average and causes warmer than usual surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It already contributed to record-high global temperatures last year, and scientists say a combination of climate change and El Niño could result in worse heat waves, floods and droughts.

“We have no way to solve the weather, it just depends on God. Sometimes, we have no choice but to lose profits and waste our time … we harvest what we can. If we can’t harvest anything, then we’ll just have to sow the seeds again.”

Lim is not alone in facing these weather problems. The heatwave and heavy rain have impacted crop yield, resulting in higher vegetable and fruit prices in Malaysia, according to reports, although this was also influenced by labour shortage issues.

In fact, a study in 2021 by scientists in New York’s Cornell University revealed that despite agricultural progress since the industrial revolution, global farming productivity is currently 21% lower than it could have been due to climate change, which is equivalent to loss of possible roughly seven years of productivity gains.

Clearly, climate change will have a huge impact on the agriculture industry, which threatens the food security of the nation. As a net food importer, Malaysia also faces the risk of climate change impacting crop yields in other countries, which then raises the prices of food items locally.

This was observed when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global prices of fertiliser to shoot up, hence pushing up the consumer price index of vegetables in Malaysia by 5.1% in February 2022. Chicken prices, meanwhile, have risen this year due to higher prices of imported corn and soy bean as poultry feed.

Between 1969 and 2009, temperatures in Peninsular Malaysia increased by 1.2°C, while Sabah and Sarawak saw rises of 0.9°C and 0.6°C respectively, according to Malaysia’s Fourth National Communication Report (NC4) that was submitted to the United Nations.

This means that Malaysians and their livestock have been experiencing hotter days.

The NC4 describes that extreme weather events, such as intense rainfall, will lead to more water-related diseases affecting livestock. One significant issue is heat stress, which happens when cattle accumulate more heat in their bodies than they can dissipate.

Under extreme conditions, severe heat stress affects cows’ milk production when temperatures are between 35°C and 37°C with 80% humidity. At temperatures exceeding 40°C with 80% humidity, cattle can die.

The National Water Research Institute of Malaysia (NAHRIM) predicts that by the end of the century, climate change could push the average temperature in Malaysia up by 2°C.

“There’s no one who deals with climate change as much as a farmer,” says Farm Fresh Bhd CEO Loi Tuan Ee.

When Loi started his dairy business in 2009, he imported 60 Holstein Jersey cows from Australia. He quickly learnt that cows aren’t easy animals. Each has its own characteristics, and his Australian dairy cows struggled to adapt to the tropics.

“Cows release heat differently from humans. When they’re too hot, they start breathing more and stick their tongues out, and it was clear they weren’t thriving,” he explains.

To address this, Loi now uses Australian Friesian Sahiwal cows, which are more heat-tolerant. However, this doesn’t make them immune to high temperatures.

In the barn, a sign that cows are overheated is when they stand up to graze instead of lying down, relaxed. Prolonged standing on hard surfaces can lead to inflamed and injured feet, and higher humidity levels can further reduce milk production.

One of the ways Farm Fresh combats this is to install an electric-powered wind tunnel to keep the barn well ventilated, and ensure troughs of water and hay are always available for the cows.

Paddy is a primary crop in the food sector for Malaysia, as rice is a staple food for most of the population and a crucial source of income for the farming community. More intense rainfall, prolonged dry spells, flooding and saltwater intrusion from rising sea levels are expected to significantly impact rice yield production.

According to the NC4, a prolonged dry spell from November 2019 to February 2020 had a direct impact on Malaysia’s rice granaries. Their data showed that at least 36% of the total production area of three main granary areas — Kemubu Agricultural Development Authority (Kada), Muda Agricultural Development Authority (Mada) and the Integrated Agricultural Development Area (IADA) Penang — saw a reduction in productivity.

Currently, Malaysia has a rice self-sufficiency level (SSL) of 71.6%, according to the NC4 report, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) has targeted an SSL of 80% by 2030.

More recently, the government said extra attention should be paid to four granaries. In a risk assessment of potential dry spells, it projected that Kada will be the most affected granary from the mid-2020s to the late 2040s, followed by IADA Barat Laut Selangor, Mada and IADA Kerian.

On top of that, the granaries located in the low-lying coastal plains are exposed to sea level rise and coastal inundation. The NC4 report projects that 27,417ha or 21.2% of the areas could be inundated by seawater by 2050. This figure is projected to increase to 44,204ha or 34.2% by 2100.

The NC4 projects that the overall rice production areas in Peninsular Malaysia that could be affected by sea level rise were projected to be 57,523ha (17.7%) by 2050 and 88,916ha (27.4%) by 2100.

The MAFS recognises that climate change remains a major challenge to the agrofood sector. Besides reducing crop yield, weather extremes damage drainage and irrigation infrastructure.

The government has implemented adaptation measures through its National Agricommodity Policy 2021-2030, which aims to develop the agricommodity sector sustainably and competitively while ensuring food security. Additionally, NAHRIM recommends reassessing and enhancing engineering guidelines for irrigation infrastructure.

For rice cultivation, this involves improving water resource management for irrigation during dry periods and enhancing field drainage during wetter seasons.

Fatimah Mohamed Arshad, a research fellow with the Laboratory of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies at Universiti Putra Malaysia, says climate change is not the only threat to Malaysia’s rice bowl. Part of the problem is caused by monopolistic practices in the rice industry and lack of diversity in rice grains cultivated locally.

“We are a net [food] importing country,” she says. “Our local rice is mixed with imported rice. After all these years, we still only have one variety. Isn’t that sad?”

In 2023, Malaysia imported 1.41 million metric tons of rice. This is a slight increase compared to more than 1.24 million metric tons in the previous year.

The agricultural policy researcher notes that while Malaysia’s food security issue is not as serious now, the lack of seed producers and the unchanged industry structure are concerning.

To survive in the coming decades, Fatimah stresses that Malaysia needs to implement both technology-smart agriculture and climate-friendly agricultural practices.

“Especially now with climate change, we need more varieties that can withstand climate change, droughts and so on. There’s so much to be done. More importantly, we need to increase the number of seed producers.”

The government, through the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, is conducting research on climate-resilient paddy varieties. The new varieties are expected to be cultivated by 2025 and 2026.

Among the new varieties is a local specialty rice variety that has shown drought-resistant qualities, making it suitable for introduction to water-stressed regions outside the main granaries. These findings will undergo further testing through pilot-scale studies as part of the 12th Malaysia Plan, according to the NC4 report.

To address the climate crisis, Malaysia has introduced several strategies, such as Good Agricultural Practices and the National Policy on Climate Change (2009). The country has also committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and plans to decommission coal plants by 2040.

However, a policy is only as good as its implementation.

“Policies are general statements. It takes time, and the whole system has to be efficient,” Fatimah says. “It needs to be a whole-of-nation approach. Each stage, from demand to supply, needs to focus on growing our rice sustainably.”

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