‘Not enough rice to eat’

A rice shortage and a worsening self-sufficiency on food could force many Malaysians to go hungry.

PETALING JAYA: Millions of Malaysians could go hungry as unpredictable weather in rice -producing countries is likely to affect our supply of rice.

Unpredictable weather in rice-producing countries, spurred by Malaysia’s rising population, could mean less food on the table, warned Kota Belud MP Abdul Rahman Dahlan.

“If they have major flooding in rice-producing countries, such as Vietnam or Thailand, or assuming they go to war, where are we going to get our rice?” he asked.

Citing the 2008 global rice shortage as an example, he added: “If the crisis then lasted for another five or six months, we would all have had to learn to eat tapioca.”

“This is no laughing matter. Our national rice stockpile is being consumed very rapidly, and we couldn’t buy rice quickly.”

Abdul Rahman said this in response to concerns raised by the World Bank over the country’s worsening food self-sufficiency levels.

According to the Malaysia Economic Monitor (Smart Cities) report, the country’s self-sufficiency in rice shrunk to 62% in 2007 from 71% in 1970.

It added that the country’s rice fields, and even the production of “most basic food items” could not keep up with Malaysia’s rising population.

“The domestic production of basic food items like rice, freshwater fish, various meat products…was unable to meet domestic consumption. Their self-sufficiency trend also worsened over the long run,” the report said.

This, it added, resulted in Malaysia relying on imports to feed its people.

This growing reliance as well as the billions of ringgit being spent to keep it going worried the Kota Belud’s Umno MP.

Abdul Rahman said that the country’s decline in food self-sufficiency may have been due to changing economic policies.

He said that former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad seemed to favour industrialisation over agriculture, a trend that was not reversed until much later.

Government still slow

Abdul Rahman added that the government had increased its national rice stockpile from 92,000 to 292,000 metric tons in recent years; able to feed the whole country for up to six months if disaster were to strike.

Despite this and the pursuit of more aggressive farming policies, Abdul Rahman said that the government was still “not fast enough”.

“There must be a minimum of self-sufficiency on all products, and there will be some foods that will be more important than others, like rice and beef.”

“(The current) self-sufficiency level is at 65% to 70%, but it would be safer if it was at 80%…100% is not possible as it would be too expensive,” he said.

East Malaysia, he said, was especially at risk if these levels did not improve. Only 30% of the rice in the Peninsular, he said, was imported.

Seventy percent of Sabah and Sarawak’s rice, Abdul Rahman claimed, had to be imported.

“Say there’s a disaster or a security problem…it would be difficult to transport rice from the Peninsular to Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.

This was one of the reasons why the government, Abdul Rahman said, was looking into boosting rice production, such as through the building of the Tambatuon dam in his constituency.

According to him, Kota Belud’s padi fields (more than 20,000 acres in total) currently produced a mere 1.5 tons of rice per season, much lower than the optimal minimum of 4 tons.

The dam, he added, would pump up irrigation in these fields.

However, the move was attacked by the opposition late last year, amidst fears by local villagers that their lands would be submerged in water.