Malaysia Economic

Malaysia Towards New National Agricultural Policy : Feeding a high income population

The agricultural industry had once been dubbed the sunset industry especially during the advent of the manufacturing era in the 80’s and again in the mid 90’s when the engine of growth shifted from manufacturing to industries such as Information Technology and high-tech electronics. However, after almost two decades of relative neglect, interest in agriculture is returning in a big and passionate way, as manifested in Malaysia where it is heralded as the next (third) engine of growth and promoted as ‘New Agriculture’ in Malaysia’s latest 5-year development plan – the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

Presently, the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry is in the midst of drafting a new policy for the agro food sector as the Third National Agriculture Policy will terminate in 2010. This new policy will cover the period between 2011 and 2020, which is a critical time when Malaysia plans to achieve an advanced high-income economy. 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.

Increasing our dependency on imported food is not a sustainable long-term strategy. The vulnerability of the country’s food supply has increased as shown by the impact of recent increases in oil prices, input prices and global food prices on our domestic supply and prices of food items. In the future, we can expect global demand for food to continue to increase as a result of population growth and increased income.

Current estimates by the Food and Agri¬culture Organi¬sa¬tion (FAO) project that there is a need to increase global food production by 70% by the year 2050 to sustain food demand. However, the world is faced with many constraints to produce more food as arable land for agriculture and water is becoming increasingly scarce. There are also new emerging...