KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — Malaysia must reform its approach towards farming if its new national agriculture policy is to succeed, says food security council Seacon.

This comes as the third National Agriculture Policy (NAP) expires this year and the country grapples with the vulnerability of its food supply.

Figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries show that Malaysia was far from being self sufficient in food, and imports exceeded exports by RM9.61 billion in 2007 as compared with RM7.06 billion in 2005.

Anni Mitin, executive director of Seacon (the Southeast Asian Council for Food Security and Fair Trade) said farmers were key to food production but were not getting enough training and support in Malaysia, without which many exit the business and opt to plant oil palm instead.

“There is no allocation for training in the NAP,” she said.

She suggested that Malaysia looks at adopting practices of advanced agricultural countries, such as the option for farmers to take out crop insurance to protect them from crop failure. They are also paid by their governments to rest their land at scheduled intervals to prevent the soil from becoming exhausted.

Mitin said that Malaysia’s price controls were an issue as they prevented farmers from getting market prices for their produce.

“Malaysian farmers are being short changed,” says Mitin.  “The issue of land (for farming) also needs to be addressed. There needs to be a proper policy.”

She also said sustainable agricultural practices have been “neglected” and that currently only 1,000 hectares of land in Malaysia could be classified as organic farms versus some 4 million hectares in oil palm plantations.

“The NAP should reflect more diversity in technologies and materials used, and not promote only chemical pesticides and fertilisers but not organic,” she said.

A hypermarket official contacted by The Malaysian Insider said the Malaysian farming sector needed to be more efficient and professionally managed in order to compete with foreign imports.

“Some people who are given land give up farming while those who are really interested to grow food are not given enough land,” said the official who declined to be identified. “The agricultural schemes are not professionally managed.”

He suggested that the government engage hypermarkets to help improve the farming sector, especially in the areas of technology and compliance to food-safety standards.

“Hypermarkets have the technology and the people,” he said. “Get hypermarkets to transfer the technological know-how.”

The secretary-general of the Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Ministry, Datuk Mohd Mokhtar Ismail, said recently that the vulnerability of the country’s food supply has increased as shown by the impact of oil price hikes, input prices and global food prices on our domestic supply and prices of food items.

He also said that the ministry was formulating a new NAP to cover the period between 2011 and 2020 — a critical time as Malaysia plans to achieve an advanced, high-income economy by then.

“The success of this policy will determine whether Malaysia will be food-secure or highly dependent on imports for our daily meals, taking into consideration the demands of a high-income population,” he said.

“Increasing our dependency on imported food is not a sustainable long-term strategy,” he added.