October 8, 2020 @ 8:31pm
LETTER: The Asean Economic Recovery Plan is meant to ensure a smooth flow of food supplies among the Asean countries for the post-Covid-19 and because of this and the pandemic, Malaysia needs to re-strategise in order to localise its food supply chain in response to restricted border policies which may take some time to ease.

Due to those restrictions for the time being, local producers will not be able to fully meet the demand for domestic fresh produce and among the reasons are low production capacity, high labour cost, transportation and equipment issues.

These constraints have left them without much choices except for direct sales to market and/or being dependent on wholesalers.

The Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (FAMA) highlighted that Malaysia's fruits and vegetables import bill has been in excess of RM8.5 billion per year.

Source: https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2020/10/630712/addressing-food-security-long-term