Pakatan govt targets 80% instead of 150% rice self-sufficiency by 2022

Malaysia was supposed to be 100% self-sufficient in rice production-supply by 2000 and not 80% by 2022

(FMT) – Malaysia targets to achieve 80% self-sufficiency in rice by 2022, moving up from the current 70%, said Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Salahuddin Ayub.

He said efforts were being made in that direction, such as increasing the rice variants and fertiliser and opening the door for technology transfer from China, Taiwan and Japan.

“Achieving that rice self-sufficiency is our dream and mission,” he told reporters after launching the countdown for the Malaysia Agriculture, Horticulture and Agrotourism Show 2018 (Maha 2018) at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang here today.

Salahuddin said the country would have to import rice even after attaining self-sufficiency because of food security and there would be people who still chose to consume imported rice like basmati.

In his speech, Salahuddin said he was impressed with the strength of China’s food security whereby it had a rice stockpile to last two years compared to Malaysia’s 22 days.

“Thailand has stocks for six months. We have to quickly learn the technology to raise production to provide high quality and sufficient food for the people,” he said.