RICE (Oryza sativa) is an important staple food for nearly half the world’s population. In Malaysia, rice and paddy cultivation kickstarted in the early 60s with small-scale farming in which later expanded by leaps and bounds before emerging as the country’s utmost important food crop. Over the decades, Malaysian rice production system has been suffering from various challenges which include extreme weather conditions, poor soil fertility and nutrient management, farmers’ lack of awareness and knowledge, hesitancy against genetically modified planting materials and poor deployment of technology. The national rice production and consumption, simply measured as self-sufficiency status staggers in between 67 and 70%. The Southeast Asia region has been an important rice export trader with Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, among the biggest rice-producing nations. Food security, under the context of sustaining international rice trading ties, succumbs to functional fluctuations of global supply chains. During the COVID-19 pandemic reported that the containment period during the outbreak led to significant disruptions to the food production chain. During the early phase of the pandemic, Malaysia experienced a volatile rice import trend, facing difficulty to secure a committed rice trading partner. In this review, we discuss the trajectory of the rice and paddy industry in Malaysia since its inception, lab-to-field translated breeding strategies adopted for improvement rice yield production, governmental participation and contribution (approaches, policies and programs) and technologies in use for rice production. Anyhow the relevant such as cutting-edge technologies, agricultural methods and practices catered for modern Malaysian rice farming, with opportunities to improve and enhance crop health and resilience are included. The review findings inform new rice agricultural practices, suggest research directions toward sustainable rice farming and provide a comprehensive knowledge base to accelerate innovation, technology diffusion and technology adoption for a resilient rice production system in Malaysia. I published more than 100 article on rice industry in my blog for the past 15 years. This article in "Anim Agriculture Technology" I want to discuss about an analysis of rice industry in Malaysia related to governance and policies, research trends, technology adoption and resilience for readings.
The rice industry in Malaysia and rice farming in Malaysia designed for their incentives, subsidies and pricing or market interventions for many years by government. at that time in which BERNAS acts as the buyer of last resort by procuring paddy from farmers at a GMP of RM1200/tonne. Farmers receive a subsidy of RM248.10 for every tonne of paddy that is harvested (unhusked rice grain), in addition to another RM650 per metric tonne, granted as a revenue incentive with at least a 1 % yield increase from the base season. Later for the input subsidies local farmers get RM200/hectare for their pesticide purchases through Pertubuhan Peladang Kawasan (PPK) to implement. Also, most farmers also receive 240 kg/ha of so-called compound fertilizer and 80 kg/ha of urea fertilizer per hectare and 100 kg/ha of organic fertilizer for cultivated rice (See photo above). Apart from those incentives such as the ploughing aid is paid at the rate of RM240/ ha. These aids are a huge relief for the farmers as the average cost of production is about RM3024/hectare. The calculated for the cost of padi production (COP) covers land rent, machinery, input cost and labour. MOA reported that in 2019 the total cost of land rental and machinery is more than 30% of the total input cost which significantly affects the COP in each granary. These two variables have continuously shown increments over the years. Then in 2020 later the National Farmers Organisation (NAFAS) was appointed as the sole distributor for the Certified Paddy Seed Incentive to ensure farmers are not short-changed by the nine seed suppliers in the country. The ceiling price was set at RM35 per 20 kg of rice seeds to overcome price manipulation. Additionally, to cater for low-income households, the maximum retail prices of 15, 10 and 5% of broken rice were capped at RM1.80, RM2.40 and RM2.60 per kilogram and this issue appeared recently in 2023 with not enough supply of paddy seeds. There are rumors that few paddy seed farmers or growers sell their seeds to rice mill claimed as imported rice with more expensive the local paddy and due to pest and diseases occurred.
Research activity for rice industry in Malaysia ha a long story.
Before the 1960s most paddy farming was relatively traditional as the operation was heavily reliant on human labour and the use of buffaloes for ploughing. The large-scale rice cultivation in Malaysia with the first double-cropping variety known as Padi Malinja was released in 1964 which replaced single-cropping rice varieties such as Nachin 5,057 and Serendah Kuning. The traditional rice varieties were low yielding (1.4 mt/ha) and hence necessitated a shift to double cropping varieties with improved yield. Development and breeding of rice varieties formally began in the 1970s with the activity of establishment of the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI). Nevertheless, the national rice breeding programs under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture had released four rice varieties before the transfer of mandate such as variety Malinja, Mahsuri, Ria and Bahagia. The average yield of these varieties was 2.47 t/ha, double the yield of traditional varieties. Malinja and Mahsuri were part of the largest japonica-indica rice hybridization project that aimed to enhance the yield component and fertilizer response in indica varieties via the integration of japonica’s inherent adaptive traits to local cultural conditions, diseases, and insects. Please read my article on most paddy varieties introduced and grown in Malaysia as linked (Click here) and (Click here). The longest paddy variety groen in Malaysia are known as MR219, MR220 and MR27.
In history reported that in 1950s most Asia country was on the brink of famine and in response to global food security later International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) actively embarked on a mission to develop high-yielding rice varieties (HYVs) in the 1960s. Various crosses between tall and dwarf rice planting materials were accomplished. Amongst which was the dwarf x tall variety cross between Dee-geo-woo-gen (dwarf variety from Taiwan) and Peta (tall variety from Indonesia). The discovery of a single recessive gene for shortness (sd-1) in the segregating F2 population led to the development of IR8-288-3 rice variety, after successful multi-location trials in the country such as the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan. The IR8 rice variety officially released in 1966 was touted as miracle rice as it kick-started Green Revolution in rice. Before the release of IR8 reported that it was Dr. De Datta as an agronomist expert from India who chanced upon the possibility of maximizing yield by examining the fertilizer response of IR8 under dry season. The average rice yield came up to about 9.4 - 10.5 mtn/ha in which was 50% more than untreated IR8. Dr. Datta’s findings paved the route and laid a significant foundation for IR8 utilization as a prototype in the development of unique national rice varieties in Malaysia, Myanmar, Mexico, Indonesia and many other countries alike. In Malaysia, the Ria rice variety that was released by DOA in 1966 was based on IR8 which underwent massive rebranding. Later in Malaysia, rice cultivation with IR8 did not sustain long. Farmers refused and rejected to pursue IR8 as the major planting material in their fields due to its poor adaptability and rice quality. Though anticipated to bring sheer joy, the IR8 cultivation turned into unprecedented shocks. As a result, farmers switched back to the use of old varieties (Mahsuri) that offered the promised rice quality and profitable cost of production. Among other reasons that led to IR8 planting hesitancy among local farmers in Malaysia were high seed and labour costs, poor taste and low rice quality. These factors collectively affected the selling price apart other additional requirements such as precise field conditions as opposed to the existing natural conditions. Then came another HYV known as IR5 (Bahagia) which had a similar yield to IR8 but exhibited better taste, was long-grained, required less seed and labour inputs, was easier to harvest and thresh and most importantly could be grown on existing field conditions. The drawing board of breeders began scouting for locally adaptive parent planting materials for the development of HYV with better grain quality; Setanjung, Sekencang and Sekembang. This article has eight (8) segments for discussion on rice industry in Malaysia related to governance and policies, research trends, technology adoption and resilience for readings. Thanks. Source: NSTP, Anim Agro Technology and frontliners.com respectively.
M Anem,
Putrajaya,
Malaysia.
(November 2023).
Updated this article in Nov 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment