FARMER Wong Seng Yee is ready to trade in his wide-brimmed straw hat and days tending vegetables for political office if it can help Cameron Highlands’ farming community get better policies that, in turn, will improve Malaysia’s food security.

“My initiative, if I get into Parliament, is to push for permanent cultivation land for farmers to ensure national food security is well taken care of,” Wong told The Malaysian Insight after signing Bersih 2.0’s clean and fair elections pledge today.

The US-trained horticulturalist said there were some 2,200 farmers in Cameron Highlands working on land under a Temporary Occupation Licence (TOL), which allows them to hold the land for only a year – an insufficient amount of time for them to expand their food cultivating projects.

“When you farm, you need land, and since the farmers in Cameron Highlands are growing food, we cannot grow food temporarily for a year,” he said. 

Cameron Highlands is Peninsular Malaysia’s major supplier of vegetables and flowers. It has suffered from poor land use planning as new farms are opened, which have caused devastating landslides in the past.

Wong said solutions by the state government to revise the land lease policy have been short term, when a long-term solution was needed to resolve the longstanding issue.

“With the longer leasehold for the farmers, they can, in return, invest more in upgrading works, which will decrease the dependency on labour and move into utilising technology.

“My mission is to represent the farming community that has waited for a local candidate to voice their concerns,” he said.

The 40-year-old, who holds a Masters’ degree in horticulture from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, admitted he had limited support but believed he could put up a good fight as he had the backing of the farming community, as well as their friends and relatives who depend on agriculture for a living.

Besides land issues, his campaign will focus on three other main areas – the environment, the Orang Asli and tourism, the father of two boys and two girls said.

Wong said there was no need to campaign by attacking the federal government’s failures or highlighting the faults of the the previous administration under Barisan Nasional.

There are enough local issues in Cameron Highlands that need to be addressed, he added.

“There is no need to pinpoint the problems from the previous government.

“Now, I will propose a sustainable way to work together with the state and federal government.” – January 12, 2019.