Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : THE PAN PACIFIC GLENMARIE RESORT,
SHAH ALAM, SELANGOR
Tarikh/Date : 21/08/96
Tajuk/Title : THE SECOND ASIA PACIFIC CONFERENCE
ON PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Revitalising Agriculture and Agro-based Industries
in Malaysia
1. First of all I wish to thank the Malaysian
Society of Plant Physiology, MARDI and the
International Association of Plant Physiology, for
inviting me here today to address such a
distinguished gathering of agricultural experts.
2. Agriculture is the world's oldest and most
important industry. Not only does it provide us
with food as well as clothing and shelter but it is
also a useful contributor to the chemical and
medical-based industries as well as to the
construction sector.
3. What is interesting is that while the first
great civilisations arose around the fertile plains
of the Nile as well as the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers, these regions did not receive enough rain
for crops to grow. It was the invention of
irrigation which raised farming to a sophisticated
level and helped to release and move people away
from the need to produce food for their own
consumption. With this freedom they were able to
focus on other activities such as crafts, trade and
the pursuit of knowledge. Thus began the early
civilisations.
4. Today the problems facing Agriculture have
taken on a new dimension. It has to address an
alarming population growth of approximately 100
million per annum. The world is expected to
accommodate 10 billion inhabitants by the year 2050
compared to 6 billion today and these people must be
fed and must enjoy a good quality of life. But
there is already a disturbing trend in the world
today to use food as a bargaining political tool in
the international arena, including the use of trade
sanctions in order to achieve compliance. The
situation is made worse because the recent Grains
Crisis has revealed how much the developing
countries depend on the developed countries for
their food supply. Statistics reveal that in
1993/94 developed countries accounted for 78 percent
of the 192 million tons of total grain exports while
developing countries accounted for 66 percent of the
imports. Already the peoples of certain developing
countries which face sanctions are being deprived of
food, while exports of subsidised excess grains by
the developed countries have undermined into the
export markets of developing countries.
5. Malaysia has charted a course into the next
millennium which hopefully will bring her into the
league of developed nations. Industrialisation
programmes have turned the economy from one of raw
material supplier to a nation also involved in the
business of manufacturing products, construction and
the provision of services such as shipping,
insurance and finance.
6. Agriculture in Malaysia faces structural and
organisational issues that need to be resolved if
the sector is to be re-engineered for growth and
development. Current challenges to the industry
have to be addressed and translated into innovative
strategies and pragmatic policies if the food, fibre
and energy needs of the nation is not to be
jeopardised. Already the import of food items is
among the biggest segment contributing to our
current balance of payment deficit. With a rapidly
growing and more affluent population, the situation
can only get worse before it can get any better.
7. Our agricultural strategy has been embedded in
two policy documents namely the New National
Agriculture Policy (1992-2010) and The Seventh
Malaysia Plan (1996-2000) which was recently
launched. The former emphasises a more commercial
approach to agriculture in order to enable those
involved to earn higher incomes. But after four
years this is still not happening and the policy is
therefore being revised to also take cognisance of
the changing scenario in a rapidly industrialising
nation.
8. The Seventh Malaysia Plan which was launched in
May, presents clearer strategies for a more
commercially attractive approach to agriculture and
in it the private sector has been called upon to be
an equal and vital player in its implementation.
The primary focus of the plan is to improve
productivity through a much more effective and
efficient use of resources. The private sector has
been called upon to initiate, manage and drive large
scale production of food and value-added products
including horticultural produce. A new renaissance-
style paradigm shift has also been advocated to
ensure that modern management techniques be
introduced to replace the basically peasant style
agriculture and small holdings which are no longer
capable of meeting a mass-consumption economy. The
shortage of labour has to be overcome through
reinvestment in machinery and increasing the size of
holdings in order to maximise the efficiency of new
farming techniques. In any case the children of
farmers are now better educated and cannot be
expected to labour on small peasant holdings.
9. Our researches have over the years built up a
solid bank of knowledge in various aspects of
agriculture. Based on this data we hope to innovate
and apply so that we can increase yield, hasten
maturity, process the harvests to supply our needs
and to expand our exports. The Seventh Malaysia
Plan is also concerned with our excess of imports
over exports. The agricultural sector must help to
reverse this trend and be a source of foreign
exchange through the application of new processing
technology for added value to our exports. All
agricultural produce must be fully utilised. Thus
the palm oil industry should not just produce palm
oil for export but should produce animal feed and
fibres for furnishing and fibre-board. The vitamin
contents of palm leaves have to be extracted and
marketed as well.
10. Faced with shortage of land and labour
Malaysians will have to invest in other countries in
order to continue using our expertise in estate
management and our newly developed high-yield
planting material. We believe that this strategy
will also be beneficial to host countries where land
is available and labour is cheaper and plentiful.
It has always been our belief that helping
neighbours to prosper through investments will
eventually benefit us. Today there are no more boat
people coming to our shores because there are now
enough employment and business opportunities in
their own country to keep them at home. Indeed
repatriation of boat-people has been made possible
and acceptable because of this.
11. Malaysian experience in tropical agriculture is
considerable. Most of our tree crops are based on
non-indigenous plants. Thus rubber is from Brazil
while oil palm and cocoa are from West Africa.
These trees have done very well in Malaysia, in fact
better than they do in their homelands. It is not
just that the climate and soil is eminently
suitable, but the approach toward exploiting these
crops has always been more commercially oriented.
Thus while in Brazil rubber was gathered largely
from trees growing naturally in the forests, in
Malaysia rubber has been grown in large estates with
the backing of intensive research in planting
methods, high-yield clones, and constant replanting
with better clones. The Malaysian rubber tree
produces ten times more than the original rubber
tree brought to this country via Kew Garden in the
UK. The same can be said of oil palm.
12. We are obviously interested in producing these
agricultural produce because of the income and
wealth that it generates. It is not a business
based on sentiments about agricultural traditions
alone. And so we tend to maximise earning through
every means possible. Thus besides producing latex
rubber trees also produce good timber suitable for
furniture. After years of reducing the girth of
rubber trees while increasing the yield, we are now
keen to increase the girth of rubber trees so as to
yield more timber. At the same time the rearing of
sheep in rubber estates seems to be a good business
proposition. Deer raising in palm oil estates can
also add to the income from the use of land.
13. Producing agricultural products efficiently is
important but equally important is the marketing of
these products. Other than rice and vegetable which
Malaysia does not produce enough, other products
such as cocoa, rubber and palm oil are produced for
the world market. And the world market is subject
not only to demand and supply equations but also to
manipulations by international traders and commodity
markets operation.
14. Attempts to stabilise markets through buffer
stocks and agreements between producers and
consumers have not really worked. More often the
producers lose in this game. For decades now
commodity producers have been selling more and more
of their products in order to buy less and less of
the manufactured goods they need. Had Malaysia
continued to depend on commodities, it would today
be one the poorest developing countries. Where
before 100 percent of our exports was made up of
rubber and tin, today only 20 percent of our exports
is made up of commodities, although to rubber and
tin have been added palm oil, cocoa, petroleum and
gas. In other words instead of having a per capita
income of US$4000, we would probably have a per
capita income of US$800 or less.
15. Clearly there is a need to look into the
marketing of commodities, especially agricultural
products. We know for a fact that many developed
countries subsidise the farmers heavily and quite
often use excess production as gifts to countries
which are the markets of the producers in developing
countries. The charitable gesture is commendable but
it impoverishes the poor countries.
16. Off and on speculators corner the market,
bringing down prices to below cost. Then when they
have gained control of the market they would raise
prices and make a killing. The producers in poor
countries can do nothing about it. But rich
powerful countries can force open the markets of
other countries in order to sell their excess
harvests. Indeed rich countries with their
technology, capital and large scale production
methods are making poor farmers in developing
countries even poorer. We now see cultivation of
rice and the exotic tropical fruits in certain rich
countries which will have a detrimental effect on
the poor farmers in poor countries. Unlike their
counterparts in rich countries who can apply
pressure on their Governments through demonstrations
etc., the poor farmers in the poor countries can do
nothing about their misfortunes.
17. New sciences have been developing in the field
of phytochemistry and others. Suddenly all the
plants in the forests seems to acquire new value.
Of course we have always known of the medicinal
qualities of certain plants. In Malaysia we have
always known about treating certain diseases with
extracts from certain plants. But western scientist
were quite cynical about the claims made. They were
not scientifically evaluated or studied and
therefore they were mere old wives tales. Chemical
formulas were scientifically synthesised and precise
and must therefore be superior to the imprecise
concoctions extracted from parts of trees and
bushes.
18. But now more and more often we are finding the
chemical compounds unsafe and possessed of many side-
effects, even dangerous ones. On the other hand the
natural extracts seem to be more friendly to the
human systems. No doubt in time the findings
regarding natural extracts will be debunked. But
until then there will be amplified interest in the
properties of certain naturally growing plants.
19. If scientific methods can be used to evaluate
synthetic chemicals, there is no reason why the same
method cannot be used for extracts from plants. A
new science that is closely related to agriculture
is fast developing. In time we should be seeing
large plantations of medicinal plants whose value
may far exceed the fruit trees, grain-bearing
grasses and other plants which today make up much of
our agriculture.
20. Gene banks will be sprouting in many countries
and hopefully the people living in the lands where
these plants grow naturally will not be once again
cheated of their heritage. Their scientists may not
have the skills and the means to identify and
extract the valuable compounds from the plants
growing in their jungles, but hopefully their rights
and their share of the discoveries will be
respected. Already there have been instances where
they have lost their natural heritage as foreign
companies pillage their forests and take as their
own the medicinally valuable extracts from the
tropical plants growing in their jungles. It is
hoped that the international community will act to
stop this daylight robbery.
21. We should appreciate the work of these
scientists and the foreign companies which finance
them and we should give them their due. But the
people and the countries where the plants are found
must also be given their legitimate share. Just
because this is an unfair world does not mean we
should not try to be fair where we can.
22. Clearly there is still a lot of life in
agriculture. It is not a sunset industry. Its
potential is tremendous if we only apply all the
latest technology and scientific methods in
identifying, analysing, developing and marketing of
new agriculture and agricultural products. More
money should be made available by Governments and
corporations for research and development. The best
minds must be applied to agro-research and they must
be handsomely rewarded. Somewhere, somehow the
advances in science and in particular information
technology should be harnessed to make agriculture,
the new agriculture, relevant and beneficial to
human society and human life.
23. Your conference on plant physiology is very
timely. We really do not know enough about the
plants around us. We are obviously not tapping the
full potential of this resource. Indeed in some
countries plants are merely regarded as decorative
and at best carbon sinks for the excessive carbon
dioxide which they produce. They appear to think
that this is the only reason why we should preserve
our forests. They wax sentimental about the beauty
of the plants and their flowers. Great
horticultural shows are held and the minutest
physical characters of the plants are painstakingly
recorded and avidly studied.
24. But the essential goodness of the plants have
largely been ignored.
25. It is time that we change our perception of
plants. It is time that we accord plants the
respect that is due to them. It is time that you as
plant scientists really study every property of
every plant. Perhaps we may find the cure for all
our diseases and problems from the secretion and the
juices which we take as being natural contents and
only of nuisance value.
26. I would like to leave you with these rambling
by one who is not a plant scientist. I wish you a
successful conference.
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