The Prime Minister has recently announced several intervention measures, especially to help farmers and paddy farmers who are affected by the issue of rising costs of agricultural inputs, especially fertilizers and pesticides, which has occurred since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry (MAFI) Datuk Seri Ronald Kiandee said that among them include a fund of RM200 million as an agro-food loan at a zero percent interest rate with a six-month loan repayment moratorium provided under TEKUN and Agrobank.
In addition, he said that an additional allocation of RM62 million through the National Farmers Organization (NAFAS) for paddy subsidies and incentives under Budget 2022 where pesticide subsidy assistance for farmers is increased from RM200 per hectare per season to RM300.
Ronald Kiandee was replying to MP for Baling Dato Seri Abdul Azeez Bin Abdul Rahim who asked the extent to which the ministry controls and manages the trend of changes in the price of fertilizers and pesticides which have risen sharply and whether there is a special initiative to increase the income of farmers and ranchers to cover the increase in the cost of agricultural input supply
He said that the Government will continue to take measures to address rising prices of fertilizers and pesticides to ensure that production productivity is not affected, and supply is always sufficient at a stable and affordable price
He said that (MAFI) is concerned about the issue of rising costs of agricultural inputs, especially fertilizers and pesticides, which has occurred since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.
“The price of fertilizer was found to have increased by almost 30% while the price of pesticide had increased by almost 100%. This price increase is determined by market forces.,” he said
He said that most of the fertilizers and pesticides used by farmers are produced from raw materials such as nitrogen, phosphate (phosphate), and potassium (potassium) imported from foreign countries such as China, the United States, India, and Indonesia
Among the factors that have been identified to influence this price, he said that the increase is policy changes from exporting countries that reduce supply, increase in raw material costs involving petroleum products and natural resources, increase in logistics costs and foreign exchange rates.
The Government will continue to take measures to address rising prices of fertilizers and pesticides to ensure that production productivity is not affected, and supply is always sufficient at a stable and affordable price
On a supplementary question by the MP of Baling on what are the alternative methods in reducing and possibly for a long time to eliminate the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides without affecting productivity and even production yields can be increased?
The Minister said that in the case of MAFI, among others, also took the following initiatives; apply Effective Microorganism Technology (TEM) that can reduce the use of fertilizers or chemicals; encourage the reuse of agricultural waste materials such as the decomposition of rice straw into organic fertilizer, introduce the use of agricultural waste such as rice straw as a crop medium, and Introduce the use of worms as a composting agent for agricultural waste (vermicompost) for the purpose of producing compost; and the practice of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) which is a combination of cultural crop management methods, physical control, and biological control.
