Beberapa kuasa gergasi ekonomi telah hancur, bagaimanapula dengan Malaysia

yang kecil? Malaysia masih bergantung pada dunia luar untuk memperoleh
makanan. Sehingga hari ini Malaysia tidak pernah mencapai keterjaminan makanan.
Catatan sejarah membuktikan bahawa Malaya adalah negara perdagangan,
bukannya negara pertanian seperti Indonesia dan Thailand.

“Salah satu sebab Empayar Malaya-Melaka yang gah gagal kerana ia tidak mampu
memberi makan rakyatnya sendiri”
“Melaka hanya menghasilkan sedikit bekalan makanan dan selebihnya bergantung
pada jualan dan perkhidmatan untuk membeli beras dari luar seperti Jawa. Jika
perdagangan mengalami kejatuhan ia akan menghancurkan empayar tersebut dan
ini telah dibuktikan oleh sejarah.
Jim Baker (1999) in “Crossroads. A Popular History of Malaysia and Singapore” p16,
p50 Published by Time Books International, Singapore

Tanah kurang sesuai untuk aktiviti pertanian dan kelembapan dari iklim tropika
merupakan faktor Malaysia masih mengimport sumber makanan termasuk sumber
makanan ruji rakyat Malaysia iaitu padi.

Apa yang lebih membimbangkan adalah populasi rakyat Malaysia yang semakin
meningkat dari 5juta penduduk sewaktu perang dunia kedua meletus kepada
mencapai 27.56juta pada hari ini. Apakah penyelesaian disebalik masalah ini?
Mungkinkah pemasaran yang berkesan mengatasi kebimbangan ini?

Overall food supply in Malaysia

Under our worse case scenario, which assumes an almost complete cessation of
trade similar to the Japanese occupation, Malaysia currently produces from its own
local resources about half of its consumption of proteins, vegetables and
carbohydrates (table 6). Palm oil can supply the entire requirement for dietary fat.
Without food imports Malaysia, even if it shares the food equitably, would therefore
be like an army on half rations.
(1) This analysis is rather chilling. Under Japanese occupation type conditions
and without government control food prices would probably skyrocket and the
growing number of unemployed Malaysians, particularly those in urban areas
 without access to food growing, would face semi-starvation. This situation
already exists in once wealthy Argentina with a far more substantial
agricultural base where 50% of school children are now living below the
poverty line. Indeed the main meal of the day for Argentine children has to be
provided free at the

OVERCOMING THE SHORTAGE OF CARBOHYDRATES

Malaysia currently produces 70% of its rice consumption. Of the 2.1 million tonnes of
paddy produced in Malaysia in 1997, 1.5 million tonnes (71%) was grown in 8
granary areas each provided with irrigation, infrastructure, extension services and
credit by a separate Statutory Body (ref MAD&I p129). The Government’s current
aim is to increase yields through improved irrigation and water use and to increase
the areas under cultivation. Several thousand hectares adjacent to the granary areas
have been identified (Arifin Tawang, MARDI, personal communication). Under
emergency conditions it therefore seems likely that rice production can be rapidly
increased by 30% to achieve current levels of rice consumption. Overall, large-scale
modern rice production has superseded kampung paddy production and the idle
paddy fields can be drained and put to other agricultural use by smallholder farmers.
Growing an alternative to Malaysia’s huge imports of cereals, valued at RM2.8 billion
in 2000, is a much more difficult problem. Cereals (used for bread, capati, cakes
etc.) currently provide half of Malaysia’s consumption of carbohydrates. We repeat,
there is little prospect of ever growing significant quantities of wheat or maize grain in
Malaysia (S. l. Tan, MARDI, personal communication).
Other sources of carbohydrate are required to replace imported cereals and also as
alternative in the event of rice disease. The Irish potato famine and mass starvation
and emigration the Irish to America in the 19 th century is a grim reminder of the
consequences of relying on a sole carbohydrate source.

Technology
The Bank has supported irrigation development for rice cultivation in Malaysia since
the mid-1960s. An OED audit of three projects in Western Peninsular Malaysia,
implemented in 1978-90, addresses some sectoral issues in public irrigation for rice
cultivation in Malaysia. 

Performance of these projects, like that of Malaysia's rice sector generally, was
deeply affected by the dramatic structural changes that occurred in the economy
during the implementation period. Rapid escalation in the costs of labor, land, and
construction pushed the sector toward mechanized farming, changing its needs for
irrigation water. As a result, the projects now appear to be economically less viable
than at appraisal. Technically, the projects performed below expectations. 

In Malaysia's increasingly industrialized economy, rice production seems likely to

become marginal, compared to other activities. But for the Bank, the experience in
these projects yields lessons for the engineering design of future irrigation projects in
the tropics. 

Malaysia has a long tradition of support for irrigated rice development, both to retain
a degree of self-sufficiency in rice production and to help alleviate poverty among
smallholder rice farmers. The support includes substantial subsidies for fertilizer and
credit, a guaranteed minimum price, and a price bonus, as well as considerable
investment in public irrigation works. Yet Malaysia is a relatively small rice producer.
Paddy supplies only one percent of GDP and five percent of agricultural value-
added. 

The Fifth Plan (1986-90) reduced the rice self-sufficiency goal from 80-85 percent of
consumption to 60-65 percent of consumption by year 2000, and concentrated public
investments in eight "granary" areas covering 220,000 ha. The continuing national
decline in rice production shows that even with high subsidies ($220 per ton in
1988), the reduced self-sufficiency targets are not being achieved. Gross paddy
production fell from 2.1 million tons in 1979 to 1.6 million tons in 1987, and has fallen
further since. Rice consumption fell from 1.34 million tons in 1979 to 1.23 million tons
in 1987. 

Economic change 

Structural changes in the Malaysian economy, and changes in the world economy,
belied these assumptions. Per capita income rose rapidly in the 1980s, except in the
1985-86 recession. Industrialization and growth were accompanied by sharply
increased wages, decreased farm labor supply, higher costs of construction and
land, and inflation. Agriculture's share of GDP diminished and, within agriculture,
cash crops such as oil palm and rubber became more profitable than rice. 

International rice prices fell in 1982 and since then have been much lower than in the
late 1970s. Many farmers left paddy farming for other occupations, usually retaining
ownership of their land and renting it out to others. Given the subsidy level, paddy
production has remained profitable for entrepreneurial farmers, who have
mechanized their operations and grouped small farms together into units large
enough to take advantage of economies of scale. 

Mechanization: Faced with higher wages and sharply reduced labor supply, farmers
have mechanized land preparation, seeding, and harvesting to reduce production
costs, labor inputs, and production time. Mechanization, which started in a small way
in the 1950s, spread rapidly during the 1980s. (While mechanization saves labor, it
does not itself increase paddy yields per hectare.) Mechanization is almost complete
in the Northwest Selangor, Muda II, and Sungei Manik project areas and is
spreading in Krian. 
Larger-scale farming: Possibilities for mechanization have encouraged owners or
managers of small farms to group them together in larger operating units (up to
about 100 ha), which allow economies of scale in mechanized ploughing, seeding,
and harvesting, and more efficient use of water. In Muda, such units have been
formed on private initiative. In Northwest Selangor, "mini-estates", often run by a
project manager for their owners, have been promoted by the government; they
cover about a fourth of the cropped area and can be very efficient.