sarawak imported RM4.4 billion worth of food and exported RM1.17 billion, a deficit in food trade balance of RM3.27 billion 2016. The agriculture sector’s contribution to the total State’s export was 11.0% or RM10.3 billion during the same period. In this regard, the State must double efforts to address the food trade deficit.
Essentially, the transformation of the agriculture sector must resolve several key issues including low technology application, traditional agriculture practices, fragmented market and incomplete supply chain, low productivity, labour intensive, lack of youth participation, low household income and disparity of income between rural and urban.
More importantly the transformation must make conscientious efforts to harness the vast potentials of agriculture resources namely vast tract of land suitable for agriculture estimated at 2.0 million hectares, large water bodies totalling 171,540 hectares including Hydro lakes for aquaculture, huge unexploited marine resources with potential catches of 330,000 tonnes per year for downstream processing industries.
Besides, the State is very rich in bio-diversity resources, which can be developed for high value – added products especially pharmaceutical and food industries. It is also important for the State to tap on the potentials of agriculture for Agro-Tourism industries leveraging on our farms, pristine environment and serene rural lifestyle.
The Chief Minister, Datuk Amar Abang Haji Johari Tun Abang Haji Openg, in his keynote speech at the official opening of the just –concluded International Conference on Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry of Sarawak (ICAAS) 2017, said the State’s challenging task ahead in transforming the State agriculture sector is to address key issues, while harnessing the vast potentials of agriculture resources.
But foremost, conscientious efforts must be made to change the mindset of the people, the youth in particular who are having the perception that agriculture is associated with low wages, labour intensive, low applications of technology, traditional agriculture practices, insufficient injection of capital, unorganised farming communities, poverty and agriculture is all about rural areas.
This negative mindset must be changed as agriculture, which should be knowledge-based, having digital and high tech applications, modern management practices, capital intensive and greater market access, is actually a lucrative and profitable venture. It is.
Datuk Amar Abang Haji Johari said his vision for the agriculture sector is that Sarawak should become the net exporter of high quality agriculture produce and products that meet the needs of both domestic and global markets.
However, the vision can only be achieved through the transformation of the agriculture sector to become competitive, vibrant, dynamic, sustainable and capable to generate more new innovative businesses and high – value employment opportunities.
He said the State target is to increase the monthly household income of farmers from RM2,750 to at least RM4,000 by 2020. Then the State will reduce the 50% mean household income disparity between the rural at RM2,754 and urban at RM5,516. The State, through this effort, will be able to alleviate the incidence of poverty in the rural areas from the current level of 1.6%.
He said the State aims to increase Self-Sufficiency Level (SSL) in food, which presently for rice from 53% to 60%, fruits and vegetables from 60% to 65%, fisheries from 92% to 100% and beef from 10% to 50%. The State must have innovative and effective strategies and initiatives to achieve the vision and objectives
The main strategies are Modernisation to increase production, productivity and quality standards of agriculture products, commercialisation and application of digital technology. Through
Through commercialisation, the State should be able to attract greater private sector participation that will bring in capital, modern management, latest technologies and market access.
He said the State to be competitive must adopt the latest agricultural technology and take full advantage of the opportunities provided by advances in Digital Technology.
Several key initiatives are being implemented to strengthen the capacity and capability of human capital to become highly knowledgeable, technically competent, business oriented and marketing savvy.
Secondly, conscientious efforts must be made to expand marketing network through trading hubs, strengthen transportation and logistics, expand and improve warehouse and collection, processing and packaging centres (CPPC) and equip them with digital infrastructures.
All these, will enable Sarawak to have access to the huge market potential within the ASEAN region with a population of 629 million and GDP of USD2.4 trillion and China market with a population of 1.37 billion and GDP of USD11.8 trillion.
The other measures being taken are:
To set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to attract more private sector investment and promote trades to enable local agriculture products to enter the global market;
An allocation of RM100 million is being approved to strengthen the financing model for agriculture sector not only through the conventional banking but also through venture capital;
To undertake aggressive and systematic investment and trade promotion to promote Sarawak as the ideal destination for agriculture and agro-based industries;
To identify appropriate business models to integrate in all players within the supply chain to enhance the development and competitiveness of the agriculture sector;
To apply modern and digital technologies including Fertigation, Smart Farming and Artificial Insemination (AI) to increase production and improve quality standards especially to meet export market requirements;
To strengthen the enforcement for sustainable management of marine resources and promote downstream processing industries;
To expand the planted areas for other commodities and food crops besides oil palm such as rubber, pepper, sago, cocoa, coconut, pineapple, durian and rambutan;
The Research and Development (R&D) activities will focus on areas that can generate high value added agriculture products;
To set up farming incubator and encourage in-situ (on site) R&D that utilises digital technology to collect and analyse critical data to manage the farming variables;
To develop and manage the full supply chain of our agriculture industry from farm to table and the value chain involving downstream agro-based industries; and
Establish regional development agencies such as Highland Development Agency (HDA) and Upper Rajang Development Agency (URDA) and implement other major regional development projects such as Sarikei-Bintangor-Betong Food Basket, Bukit Sadok Agropolitan and Tanjung Manis Halal Hub.
Generally, the State needs more new creative and innovative ideas in accelerating economic growth in view of uncertainties in the global economy and challenging time. In this regards, the State must look into new policies, approaches and business models in developing the State economy namely the Agriculture Sector
Sarawak, being the biggest State in Malaysia has a land mass of around 124,000 square kilometres. It is blessed with abundant natural resources and rich in biodiversity.
Sarawak, despite its big size, racially diverse population and multi religious make up, is the most socially cohesive society in the country. It is truly an example of Unity in Diversity as encapsulated under the spirit of 1Malaysia.
Datuk Amar Abang Haji Johari assured that Sarawak, which is fully aware of the need to protect the environment for future generations, is fully committed to manage the resources in a sustainable manner. For example, the State has gazetted much of the forested land, rich in flora and fauna as Totally Protected Areas in the form of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
More importantly, the State has politically stable, transparent and business friendly Government. In this regard, the State always welcomes foreign direct investment to do businesses locally.
Concomitantly, the State promotes domestic direct investment which is also needed to accelerate development through greater private sector capital injection into the economy.
Datuk Amar Abang Haji Johari said the State, in broadening economic base, has successfully diversified the economy from being highly dependent on the extraction of natural resources such as timber and petroleum, to one that is increasingly driven by heavy, high tech and knowledge based industries.
He said the State, with the aspiration to become a developed State with high income economy, is implementing a long – term Socio-Economic Transformation Plan or SETP with the main objective to accelerate economic growth, address the income disparity between urban and rural areas and to alleviate poverty in the State.
He believed the State’s economy by implementing SETP would grow at around 6.5% per annum, which is required to achieve a high income economy and developed status by 2030. By then, the Real Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is expected to reach RM82,600 well exceeding the threshold high income level of RM79,000 as defined by the World Bank.
Since SETP is a Long Term Development Plan from 2016 until 2030, it will be carried out in Phases. The first phase of SETP is the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (11MP) from 2016 until 2020. In order to drive our economic growth and to move our economy up the value chain under the Plan, we must identify new initiatives. For this reason,
Datuk Amar Abang Haji Johari said he has put in place, since taking over as the Sixth Chief Minister of Sarawak in March this year, new initiatives to strategically drive further economic growth especially under the current development plan.
The new initiatives are Development Bank of Sarawak (DBOS), Digital Economy, Petroleum Sarawak (PETROS), Petro chemical Industry, taking over of Bakun HEP, Water Grid, Data Centre, Talent Development, Light Rapid Transport and the Transformation of Agriculture Sector.
In this respect, the people must realise that feeding the world requires the application of modern and innovative farming production system including the utilisation of digital technologies such as drone, remote sensing, micro-chip sensors and e-Commerce platforms. This has been proven in the development of agriculture sector in many developed economies.
For Malaysia, the agriculture sector contributed 8.9% or RM94.1 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) totalling RM1,062.8 billion in 2015. For the same period, the total import of food was RM45.3 billion while food export was RM27.4 billion.
This resulted in food trade deficit of RM 17.9 billion. In terms of employment, about 11.7% or 1.6 million are employed in the agriculture sector. In order to boost the growth and contribution of the agriculture sector, we need to address pertinent issues.
