EARLIER this year, agriculture minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek said that he was proud of Malaysia’s 35th ranking on the 2016 Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Food Security Index (GFSI).

According to the minister, Malaysia’s ranking is comparable with other agriculturally advanced countries such as Thailand because Malaysia is capable of producing our own food and this protects our national food security.

However, when the GFSI 2017 was released a few months later, Malaysia’s ranking dropped to 41 out of 113 countries. More worryingly, Malaysia’s GFSI score fell by 3.2 points, from 69.4 in 2016 to 66.2 in 2017, which puts us among the top 10 countries with the highest drop in our GFSI scores.

GFSI measures food security in terms of affordability, availability, food quality and security. Countries which do not produce much of the food they consume do not necessarily score badly in this index. Singapore, for example, is ranked 4th in this index because it has managed to secure a stable and secure supply of food from various sources around the world.

On the other hand, developing countries plagued by natural disasters, such as Haiti (ranked 107th), and those experiencing civil wars such as Syria (ranked 99th) and Yemen (ranked 108th) are at the other end of this food security spectrum.

Whenever a country experiences a noticeable drop in its GFSI score and ranking, the country’s government and policy makers have to sit up and take notice. Venezuela’s large drop in its GFSI score is due to bad economic management, hyperinflation and difficulty in procuring imported food.

Qatar’s GFSI ranking fell from 2016 to 2017 because of worries over diplomatic feuding with its neighbours that could threaten its food imports.

In the case of Malaysia, our fall in the GFSI score and ranking is largely due to a deterioration in the index’s ‘availability’ score, which measures factors such as the sufficiency of supply, public expenditure on agricultural R&D, agricultural infrastructure, volatility of agricultural production, political stability risk, corruption, urban absorption capacity and food loss.

The largest drops in Malaysia’s score were in the sub-categories of ‘sufficiency of supply’ (-24.0), ‘urban absorption capacity’ – a measure of how new information and technologies are commercialised to improve productivity (-11.3) – and political stability risk (-2.3).

What are some of the key drivers pulling down Malaysia’s score in terms of food supply? A local research study found that one of the challenges in development of the domestic agro- food industry is limited land resources, idle land and shortages in the workforce. Agricultural land is also being converted to industrial, commercial and residential as part of the pressures of economic development.

The move to convert usage of agriculture land from food crops to more lucrative commodities such as palm oil is also one of the driving factors pulling down Malaysia’s food production.

The ageing agricultural workforce and the increase in foreign worker dependency can also be one the root causes in declining food productivity. In Malaysia, there are 646.4 thousand foreign workers in the agro industry and 60% of the current workforce is over 60 years old. 

The younger generation sees the agro industry as one which is low paying and very limited in terms of career development. Although technological improvements may help in reducing labour dependency in this sector, the decrease in the number of local agricultural workers (and the rapid aging of the existing workforce) is still one of the biggest challenges in the food production industry in Malaysia.

Reversing the trend

Firstly, urban farming has largely been neglected by the government as part of the national agro-food policy. This is a waste since there are many unutilised areas in the cities which can be used for urban farming including riverside banks and the land under the TNB pylons. The government should consider providing subsidies, assistance and incentives that are similar to the Cantas Discount Scheme to encourage urban farming.

At the same time, proper guidelines on the size of land, type of land/space that are available for farming and a user agreement with the owner of sites (public or private) should be established for the abovementioned areas in the city such as riverside banks and TNB reserve land.   

The role of smallholders, farmers and fishermen in food security, also need to be enhanced. A key report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that smallholder farmers need better access to more profitable markets to escape from food insecurity.

Hence, encouraging more farmers to participate in mini estates and group farming activities can be a way to increase their profit and productivity. Setting up a special programme that targets poor farmers and fishermen with the primary aim of upgrading their equipment can help to increase their income and productivity too.   

We also need to attract more attract more people from the younger generation to go into the agricultural industry including encouraging urban-rural migration. The government has already established certain mechanisms for this: a good example would be the MYAGROSIS programme, launched in 2011 as a partnership between the MOA and MOHE with an allocation of RM30 million.

The purpose of this programme is to change the perspective of students on the agroindustry and to attract them to enter this sector. However, awareness of this programme remains relatively low. More effort needs to be expended in promoting this program and/or starting new programmes to reach out to the younger generation including young graduates.

Finally, monopolies on food import licenses should be abolished so that more players can participate in the international market in order to diversify the sources of our food imports. The most well-known example of this is in the importation of rice which is largely controlled by Padiberas Nasional Berhad (BERNAS), a paddy trading company that currently controls a monopoly of the rice import business. As the sole license holder to import rice from overseas, BERNAS has the power to set prices to maximise profits for its shareholders, while neglecting interests of farmers, bumiputera rice millers and the rice industry at large.  

Malaysians tend to take for granted that there will always be a steady supply of nasi lemak and roti canai at our local mamak. But if our food security situation continues to deteriorate, the ease of access to foods we enjoy may not be guaranteed for much longer. – December 3, 2017.

* Esther Sinirisan Chong is a member of Agora Society. She was born and raised in the Land Below the Wind. Her research interest lies in education and government policies, and the history and heritage of East Malaysia.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.