PADI farmers in Kota Belud, Sabah, are today paying the price for the government’s decision to abolish the Sabah Padi Board nearly four decades ago.

No matter how hard 55-year-old Saim Alik toils the rice fields in Kg Tanjung Batu II in Usukan, Kota Belud, his income never grows.  

No matter how much he and other farmers manage to increase their yield, they are still forced to sell their rice at the price fixed by Padiberas Nasional (Bernas), the company which imports and distributes rice for the government.

In Sabah, the price of rice per kg is set at 90 sen and many padi farmers feel Bernas has an unfair monopoly on determining the price of a staple food.

“Forget about getting rich,” Saim told The Malaysian Insight on a visit to the Kota Belud rice fields, Sabah’s main rice-growing district that covers some 10,000ha.

“If any of my children don’t do well in school, they might as well join me in the field,” he said.  

Saim harvests the fields – land he does not own – only once a year and can earn around RM12,000 from a single harvest.

He could earn a little more by harvesting twice a year, but there is a shortage of harvesting machines.

The physical labour is not compensated by the earnings, as most of what is earned from a harvest is used to prepare for the next cycle of padi planting and harvesting.

After all those costs, Saim ends up with a mere RM2,000 set aside for his family.

This sum is stretched for the whole year to put food on the table until the next harvest arrives, he said. He catches fish to supplement his family’s livelihood and finds scrap metal to sell for extra income.

“With that much money, we only have around RM5 a day to spend.

“This year, I had to use up some of the money meant for harvesting as my eldest daughter entered college,” said Saim, who also took a loan from a friend to finance his harvest.

Rice production in Sabah was more than 70% self-sufficient before the Sabah Padi Board was dissolved in 1981 but is now at 30%.

The board had helped with the development and welfare of padi farmers and had provided financial capital.

This also drove it into debt and after its dissolution, farmers started selling their rice fields or abandoned them when they stopped receiving assistance.

Padi planting no longer became profitable and yields dropped as farmers turned to other sources of income.

The then state Barisan Nasional (BN) government had poured in much effort into boosting the sector in Sabah but did not manage to raise output, with more farmers losing interest after Bernas took charge of rice production and capped the price for farmers.

Some padi farmers in Kota Belud also felt the BN government was mistaken in attempting to turn the flood plains of the sub-district, Tampasuk, into a rice bowl.

Millions of ringgit was poured into the area despite the difficulty of harvesting in the flood-prone area.

Another farmer, Ahmad Hashim, 45, said the government had focused on the wrong location.

Flooding has worsened in Tampasuk following the state’s worst earthquake in 2015.

“Other areas are spared from the flooding but the government was keen on developing in Tampasuk,” he said.

There is some hope for fortunes to change after the defeat of the BN government at state and federal level last year.

In July after the elections, Sabah agriculture and food industries minister Junz Wong of the Warisan-led state government said a technical team has been formed to look into reviving the Sabah Padi Board, as well as the reasons why it was dissolved in the first place.

Scant reporting on its closure mentions that the board was heavily in debt.

At the federal level, the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry is also looking at ways to break Bernas’ monopoly on the rice industry.

These steps, however, are not fast enough for Saim, who said the odds are mounting against farmers as time goes by.

The latest difficulty is the demand for full payment instead of a deposit to engage harvesting machine operators.

“Not only do they ask for a full payment, they had also raised their charges from RM240 to RM280,” he said.

Saim shares the field with his 76-year-old father-in-law, Sairan Sidek, who remembers how the life of padi farmers used to be easier.

“We keep enough for the family, while the rest is sold at the market,” the older man said.

The government’s decision to float the price of fuel, although still capped at a ceiling, and the higher cost of fertilisers, has increased the cost of harvesting and planting, he added.

“Our only lifeline is now government subsidy. Much of the fixed costs are rising and this further reduces our income,” Sairan said. – March 10, 2019.