RICE INDUSTRY IN MALAYSIA - AN ANALYSIS (PART 7)

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 (GMO) 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 covid19 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 rice yield improvement, governmental participation and contribution (approaches, policies and programs) and technologies in use for rice production. Further, relevant 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.

There are many systems of growing paddy in this world. There are around four methods of cultivating rice known as broadcasting, drilling, transplantation and Japanese method. In some countries rice is mostly grown throughout the year in hot and humid regions. Based on the season and different species normally the life cycle of the rice plant is around 100 to 210 days. The life cycle of rice generally includes the vegetative stage, reproductive stage, and ripening stage. Each stage can be subdivided into more detailed stages. In the vegetative phase of growth there are four stages known as emergence, seedling development, tillering and lastly internode elongation. Similarly, later the reproductive phase of growth is subdivided into five stages known as pre-booting, booting, heading, grain filling and lastly maturity. Back to the topic in which the service models for rice farming in Malaysia are changing. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones have become an important tool for precision agriculture. According to the US-based 1996 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International in which about 80% of the future drone market is expected to engage in agriculture sector. Drone platform offers opportunities to fetch a wide array of more agronomically important datasets; soil analysis, mapping and detection of outliers, irrigation, spraying and planting of plants. In rice, the above ground biomass which accounts for yield-related traits such as number of panicles, spikelets or grains per panicle, percentage of filled kernels/grains, grain weight and others, cumulatively determine the yield potential of rice at a given growing cycle. Effective monitoring of yield-related traits is particularly important to gain insights into crop growth stability and yield.

From beginning of rice industry until today reported that rice cultivation in Malaysia has a long history of being dominated by small farmers. In general, they can be classified into five different groups based on the land hold area identified bay DOA as marginal size (less than 1 hectare), small farm size (1 - 2 hectare), Semi-medium size (2 - 4 hectare), medium size (4 -10 hectares) and large size or commercial grower's holders (more than 0 hectares). In Malaysia lately as I do know in which the drone technology for agriculture is mainly employed in private sectors especially in granary area. Although the drone industry had established a broad niche of application in agricultural systems (oil palm, mainly) but from my observation that the impact on Malaysian rice farmers is relatively minimal at engagement in sprayer drones solely. Please read my article about the drone in my article (Click Here) for reference. Sprayer drones are used to facilitate timely application of fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals alike. Professional drone users do not hail from the farmers community. Spray drones are offered as service models and are mostly distributed in the high performing rice granaries in Malaysia (Tanjung Karang, Sekinchan). Since drone technology is gaining attention, paving new directions in modern rice farming, more youngsters are pursuing technical courses which are readily available locally. For example, the My Drone Services offers technical courses (basics for drone user and agriculture pilot drone) on the handling, maintenance and management of drones. Similar courses (professional drone navigator) are also organized at the community college levels (eg. Kolej Komuniti Sabak Bernam, Selangor). On a daily basis reported that an average capacity drone could cover up to 10 hectares of paddy field. The charges are based on area size covered; RM12-20 (USD2.70 - 4.50) for a quarter of a hectare. Some reports with local farmers (Feb 2020) in Tanjung Karang in Selangor found drones were favored for the technology that was fast-spraying efficiency which subsequently improved rice production via mitigation of pest, disease and lodging. 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...

By,

M Anem,

Putrajaya,

Malaysia.

(Prepared on November 2023).

Updated by December 2025.

MERRY CHRISTMAS....