REVISIT FOOD SECURITY IN MALAYSIA (PART 3)

FOOD SECURITY exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life as defined by World Food Summit, 1996). It consists of component such as Food availability: The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid). Food access: Access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Entitlements are defined as the set of all commodity bundles over which a person can establish command given the legal, political, economic and social arrangements of the community in which they live (including traditional rights such as access to common resources). Food Utilization: Utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met. This brings out the importance of non-food inputs in food security. Food Stability: To be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to adequate food at all times. They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks (e.g. an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. seasonal food insecurity). The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security. This article in "Anim Agriculture Technology" I would like to rewrite about food security in Malaysia revisited.

As a case study on past policy target inconsistencies, we can look into rice's SSL targets over the past few decades. From up to 100 per cent SSL in the 1970s and 1980s, it dropped to 80-85 per cent between the 80s to 90s and stagnated at a low 65 per cent between 2000 to 2010. The NAP 1.0 which ran between 2010 to 2020 had a 70 per cent rice SSL target, but 2019 data reported by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) showed only 63 per cent rice SSL. Even this low figure could be overestimated given potential issues of rice smuggled into the country. Needless to say, the low SSL figure is a highly worrying food insecurity situation as rice is a staple food. The above concerning dynamics are not surprising when confronted with numbers revealing how starting from 1960 to the present the industrial commodities and cash crops with their economic appeal gradually but massively overtook land mass in Malaysia limiting the production of food crops.

According to Shevade and Loboda, 2019 that the "oil palm plantations accounted for the largest area under industrial tree crops in Malaysia by 1990 and by 2010 oil palm plantations covered 20 per cent of Peninsular Malaysia".  However, the arable land, defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as land currently used, or potentially capable of being used, to grow seasonal food crops, as per cent of total land area while already being many times lower than our regional peers in 1980s has further shrunk to a meagre 2.5 per cent in 2018. Economically-driven policy shifts resulted in Malaysia overlooking food security as a matter of national security. Therefore, when trade routes were halted at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Malaysia had to resort to knocking on the doors of other nations to push for rice imports. Reports indicate that the production of rice in Malaysia is not as cost-efficient as in neighbouring countries such as Thailand. Researchers from Universiti Utara Malaysia noted that this could be due to lower international market pricing for rice being below Malaysia's average production cost. This explains why rice and padi is a heavily subsidised industry. Despite this, and especially for higher-end/exotic rice varieties, it could be cheaper to import. In short, our padi industry is not competitive.

Thus, approaching self-sufficiency from the national security perspective must transcend purely economic reasons - we would not be able to eat cash, or drink oil palm during times of crisis. Furthermore, investing heavily in national technology-infused agriculture or AgriTech is an excellent market proposition for Malaysia with a captive market of more than 32 million people and never-ending demand. Not by chance, the world's most renowned sovereign wealth funds such as the Government Pension Fund of Norway, Temasek, and Kuwait Investment Authority invest heavily not only in their local AgriTech initiatives but in similar initiatives worldwide. These savvy investors know that apart from a captive market AgriTech means efficiency and reduced risks with simultaneously increased yields. Yes, AgriTech is capital intensive, but it pays off. The recent chicken supply shortage is a good example to show that even high SSL does not guarantee food availability. There are many elements beyond what is calculated for SSL that make the question of local production capacity, imports, exports, and storage capacities (stockpile) to be insufficient parameters to consider when it comes to food security. Malaysia's chicken SSL is 113.5 per cent according to DOSM based on 2020 data, but still, recently we faced a supply issue due to a combination of the following reasons:

1. Higher prices and/or shortages of external inputs affecting output

2. Short-term government measures (price ceiling, export ban etc.) shutdown of smaller producers

3. Potential withholding of supply from big players acting as a cartel to boycott government measures

4. Labour shortage

5. Adverse weather conditions

Despite its high SSL levels, chicken supply experienced shortages and price increases. Thus, high SSL is insufficient to guarantee food security with structural, economic and governance weaknesses. It is also questionable how the stockpiling strategy for chicken would be successful given reports that existing storage capacities for fish failed to be utilised, resulting in similar shortage issues. The structural and governance issues still underline policy implementation weaknesses. To be specific, SSL is only an element under one dimension ("Availability") of food security, which is a multi-dimensional issue. We can see this in the definitions outlined by both GFSI and The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This article divided in 4 segmen that is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 respectively. Thanks...

By,

M Anem,

Putrajaya,

Malaysia.

(January 2023).