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KUALA LUMPUR – The Agriculture and Food Industries Ministry (Mafi) today assured that food supply in the country has not reached the crisis level as claimed by some quarters.
Its deputy secretary-general (development), Datuk Badrul Hisham Mohd said although there were some hiccups with regard to food supply, particularly chicken and wheat, it had not affected the domestic supply.
“This is because about 94% of the chicken output is for local supply and only 6% for export.
“Overall, this country produces around 54 million chickens per month and the production capacity is able to meet the domestic need,” he said while being a guest on Bernama TV’s Koresponden Bernama programme titled Food Crisis: What is Mafi’s Assurance for National Food Security? today.
He also said that about 72% of the overall cost of rearing chickens was for the feed, imported from countries like Brazil and Argentina.
“The corn used for the domestic chicken feed is no longer grown in Malaysia on a big scale and because of this, Mafi is moving towards creating a cornmeal industry in order to solve the problem of importing it,” he added.
Badrul also suggested that palm oil producers allocate a portion of their farm land to grow corn towards reducing the dependency on other countries for cornmeal as chicken feed, which is costly.
On the issue of wheat, he said India’s decision to ban the export of its wheat had no effect on Malaysia as the main sources of this commodity were countries like Australia and the United States.
He added that India exported only about 1.9% of its wheat to Malaysia while Mafi and the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry were making efforts to solve the issue to ensure the people have sufficient food supply. – Bernama, May 30, 2022