CAMERON HIGHLANDS – Malaysians have been forewarned to expect prices of vegetables to soar again, on top of the rising prices of petrol, due largely to the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Cameron Highlands’ Vegetable Farmers Organisation president Datuk Chai Kok Lim told The Vibes that several reasons contributed to sky-high prices. Firstly, the industry has seen an increase in the cost of manpower, which has gone up by 50% to 60% since 2020.
“More than half of our fertilisers are imported from China and the rest are from other countries, even Europe, but we don’t import from Russia.
“That said, we will still be affected by the Russo-Ukrainian War because of the petrol prices that are going up.
“Transportation costs, borne by the middlemen, will definitely impact the vegetable market,” he said.
For example, mustard greens (sawi) are now RM10 per kg at retail value, but they are taken from farmers’ hands by distributors at RM6 per kg. Chai said middlemen have to hike the price up significantly because of transportation costs.
Because most farmers have contracts with the middlemen, he explained, earning a living depends on luck.
They will need to produce a predetermined weight of vegetables for the middlemen for a predetermined price.
Sometimes, when the costs of growing vegetables go up, they sell at a loss.
To assist farmers in reducing their costs, precision farming has been suggested to reduce the wasteful usage of fertilisers.
In an interview with The Vibes, Sim Tze Tzin, a former deputy minister of agriculture and agro-based industry, recently predicted higher inflation and raised prices for all vegetables and food because of the conflict in Ukraine.
He said farmers across the world will be scrambling to buy fertiliser, especially from larger countries like America and China. “Even the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has already put up warnings stating that food prices will increase further,” said Sim, the Bayan Baru MP.
Sim suggested that Malaysia needs to look at precision farming to control price hikes. The fertiliser used would be targeted and timed using technology so that it is not wasted.
“There are even more advanced methods like dripping where fertiliser is dripped according to the time the plants need it,” he said.
“Farmers must look at this seriously and think of how to save costs. The technology is already available. As it is, fertiliser amounts to approximately 30% of the total cost to grow vegetables.”
M’sian farmers bogged by land restrictions
Chai opined that precision farming is not very feasible in Malaysia, though he is for it. He said that the method is not suitable across the board because of land issues and high costs of the investments required for the purpose.
“Malaysia is not like Europe or Japan where their government allocates land exclusively for farming vegetables,” he said.
“Here, almost 70% to 80% of the land we work on is temporary land, which means the government will give you one year to work on the land, and you will have to renew it the next year. If the government has a development project for the land, then they will take the land.
“Because the land is not permanently dedicated for agriculture, no farmer will want to invest in precision farming.”
Most farmers in Cameron Highlands are now using plastic shelters for farming, and it costs RM150,000 to RM200,000 per acre.
Upgrading land for precision farming will cost the farmer up to RM1 million per acre.
“No farmer will invest this much if the land is not permanently dedicated to farming,” he said. – The Vibes, March 12, 2022
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