KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 — The government is focusing on strengthening national food security in the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP) through various initiatives touching on a more sustainable and resilient agrofood production, as well as the supply and distribution chain.
The 13MP document issued by the Economy Ministry today touched on these core strategies, including raising food production capacity through large-scale agriculture in east coast states, as well as Sabah and Sarawak, to fulfil the needs of the people and to expand potential international markets.
Efforts to boost padi production will be intensified under 13MP through private sector partnership programmes, including in the Muda area in Kedah and Perlis, with the scope of the programmes encompassing comprehensive infrastructure development, improvements to irrigation, and drainage systems and the use of smart agriculture.
The People’s Income Initiative will be empowered through improvements to its implementation model, diversifying agricultural activities, utilising unused land, and intensifying research and development (R&D), as well as commercialisation and innovation (C&I) to encourage the planting of high-protein plants as alternative food sources.
Also, other programmes such as the National Agrofood Empowerment programme, the Nextgen Agropreneur and the Pengganda30 will carry on with more young agropreneur participation with assistance from industry players and civil society associations, and be strengthened to reduce food waste and to promote the concept of zero waste.
The 13MP document also outlined various improvements to import source diversity policies to strengthen the food supply chain security, including the entry process of imported food, like import permits, safety inspections, and certification, so as to reduce dependence on several main exporting countries.
Other measures include addressing post-harvest losses, strengthening enforcement under existing acts and introducing targeted agricultural disaster protection schemes through collaboration with the private insurance sector.
The government will also upgrade marketing infrastructure, including agriculture collection, processing and distribution centres to ensure a smooth supply chain, with small and medium retailers empowered to be involved in agrofood marketing hubs, while a real-time price and supply repository will be set up to ensure price transparency, with enforcement on price and competition stepped up to curb market manipulation.
In addition, self-sufficiency targets for 2030 have been set for rice (80 per cent), vegetables (79 per cent), fruits (83 per cent), beef and buffalo meat (50 per cent), poultry (140 per cent), duck and chicken eggs (123 per cent) and fishery (98 per cent), along with value-added agriculture contribution targets for 2030 in the vegetable subsector, from RM19.4 billion to RM21.8 billion, fisheries from RM11.8 billion to RM14 billion, livestock from RM17.4 billion to RM19.7 billion, and rice from RM2 billion to RM2.5 billion.
Throughout the 12th Malaysia Plan, the agrofood subsector remained as the primary contributor to value-added agriculture at 53.3 per cent in 2024, while key achievements in the same period include the launch of the National Food Security Blueprint and the setting up of the Malaysian Agrofood Regulatory and Enforcement Agency in 2025, the implementation of the Padi Wave and Five-Season Padi Planting programmes, which boosted rice production to 5.0 metric tonnes a hectare.
Finally, 7,295 Madani Agro Sales programmes were held as of April this year, which attracted 4.28 million visitors, and 815 pioneer entrepreneurs benefited from the Daya Maju Usahawan Geran Agropreneur Muda programme in 2024.
— Bernama
