Malaysia not facing food crisis, ministry assures

The agriculture and food industries ministry today assured that food supply in the country has not reached the crisis level as claimed by some quarters, adding that it is still sufficient.

Deputy secretary-general (development) Badrul Hisham Mohd said although there were some hiccoughs with regard to food supply, particularly chicken and wheat, these had not affected domestic supply.

“This is because about 94% of the chicken output is for local supply and only 6% is for export.

“Overall, the country produces around 54 million chickens per month and the production capacity is able to meet domestic need,” he said on a programme on Bernama TV.

He also said that about 72% of the overall cost of rearing chickens goes to feed, imported from countries like Brazil and Argentina.

“The corn used for domestic chicken feed is no longer grown in Malaysia on a big scale and because of this, the ministry is moving towards creating a cornmeal industry in order to solve the problem of importing it,” he added.

Badrul also suggested that palm oil producers allocate a portion of their farm land for the cultivation of corn, to reduce the dependency on other countries for cornmeal as chicken feed.

On the issue of wheat, he said India’s decision to ban exports had no effect on Malaysia as the main sources of this commodity were countries like Australia and the US.

He added that India exported only about 1.9% of its wheat to Malaysia while the agriculture and food industries ministry and the domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry were making efforts to solve the supply issue to ensure the people have enough food supply.