KUCHING: Sarawak needs to double its efforts to address the food trade deficit which stood at RM3.27 billion last year.
Last year, the state imported RM4.4 billion worth of food while it only exported RM1.17 billion. Hence, the deficit in food trade balance of RM3.27 billion.
Chief Minister, Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg said agriculture contributed about 11.0% or RM10.3 billion to the total state export.
“In this regard, we need to double our efforts to address the food trade deficit,” he said when delivering his keynote address at the official opening of the two-day International Conference on Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry of Sarawak (ICAAS) 2017 at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here yesterday.
“We need to transform our state agriculture sector. Specially, we need to resolve several key issues. These issues include low technology application, traditional agriculture practices, fragmented market and incomplete supply chain, low productivity, labour intensive methods, lack of youth participation, low household income and disparity of incomes between the rural and urban areas,” he pointed out.
To transform the agriculture sector, Sarawak, Johari said, must also harness the vast potentials of its agriculture resources including vast tracts of land suitable for agriculture estimated at 2.0 million hectares, large water bodies totaling 171,540 hectares including hydro lakes for aquaculture, huge unexploited marine resources with potential catches of 330,000 tonnes per year for
“We are also rich in bio-diversity resources which can be developed for high value added products especially pharmaceutical and food industries,” he said, adding that it was also important to tap the potentials of agriculture for agro-tourism industries leveraging on the farms, pristine environment and serene rural lifestyle.”
“We also need to change the mindset of our people, especially the youth pertaining to their perception that agriculture is associated with low wages, labour intensive, low applications of technology, traditional agriculture practices, insufficient injection of capital, unorganized farming communities, poverty and agriculture is all about rural areas.
Johari said the people’s negative mindset of agriculture must also change.
According to him, it is now a lucrative and profitable venture. It is knowledge-based, provides high incomes, involves digital and high tech applications and modern management practices, is capital intensive and has greater market access.
The Chief Minister added it was his vision that Sarawak agriculture sector would become a net exporter of high quality agriculture produce and products that met the needs of both the domestic and global markets. This vision, he said, could only be achieved through the transformation of the agriculture sector.
For a start, he said, the state’s target was to increase the monthly household income of farmers from RM2,750 to at least RM4,000 by 2020.
“We will reduce the 50% mean household income disparity between the rural at RM2,754 and urban at RM5,516. Through this effort, we will also be able to alleviate the incidence of poverty in the rural areas from the current level of 1.6%,” he said.
“For food production, we aim to increase our Self-Sufficiency Level (SSL) in food. Presently, our SSL targets for food items are from 53% to 60% for rice, from 60% to 65% for fruits, from 92% to 100% for vegetables and fishery items and from 10% to 50% for beef.”
To achieve the vision and objectives, Johari stressed the need for innovative and effective strategies and initiatives.
“Our main strategies are Modernisation, Commercialisation and Application of Digital Technology,” he explained.
Johari added under the strategies, several key initiatives were being implemented including strengthening the capacity and capability of our human capital to become highly knowledgeable, technically competent, business oriented and marketing savvy and
expanding our marketing networks through trading hubs, strengthening our transportation and logistics, expanding and improving warehouse and collection, processing and packaging centres (CPPC), and equipping them with digital infrastructure.
“All these will enable us to have access to the huge market potential within the ASEAN region with a population of 629 million and a GDP of USD2.4 trillion and the China market with a population of 1.37 billion and GDP of USD11.8 trillion.”
Johari said Sarawak would also set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to attract more private sector investment and promote trade to enable the state’s agriculture products to enter the global market.
