Time for rice rationing: An economy rice stall owner, serving up a plate of rice and dishes for a customer in George Town, Penang. — LIM BENG TATT/The Star
KLANG: Initially there was limited supply of locally-produced rice in supermarkets and grocery stores.
That has now escalated to almost zero supply and is hitting consumers where it hurts the most – their pockets.
Given that rice is Malaysia’s staple food, this drastic turn of events is forcing consumers to buy the more expensive imported supply.
Grocery store owners and rice distributors say that it has been quite some time since they last received the price-controlled locally-produced variety.
C. Ramu, who owns and runs a grocery store in Taman Seri Andalas here, said his three rice distributors had stopped sending him local rice.
“Two of them told me in early August that they cannot supply local rice anymore and the third distributor gave me 20 bags in the middle of August and said that was all he had,” he said.
Ramu said he was now receiving only imported rice, which is being retailed at RM33 for a 10kg bag, but he had been warned by his distributors that the price could go up soon.
“The price of imported rice is not controlled, so it can just spiral,” he said.
Rice distributor Osman Abdul Rahman said he had not received local rice from the main supplier since early August.
“We only have imported rice, but by right, we should only sell 30% of imported rice, with the remaining 70% being rice produced by local farmers.
“That is how it was before,’’ said Osman.
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The general assumption about the shortage is because demand has surpassed supply, but padi farmers have a different story to tell.
Sekinchan padi farmer Yap Kang Pua said the shortage was due to a drastically-reduced yield and claimed that one of the reasons behind this was the dirty water used to irrigate the padi fields.
He said this was not a new development as the shortage of clean water for the padi fields first took root almost a decade ago and had escalated to the current situation.
“Our yield is very bad because we have to pump water from the nearby waterways into the fields, but the water from this source is contaminated,” he said.
Because of this, explained Yap, a lot of the plants died before reaching maturity.
The only solution, he added, was for the relevant authorities to tap underground water and build a covered storage area for farmers to water their fields.
Another padi farmer Mohd Asri Badron, also from Sekinchan, said the seeds given to the farmers were of weak quality and often succumbed to the various padi-related diseases such as bacterial leaf streak disease (BLS), bacterial leaf blight (BLB) and bacterial panicle blight (BPB).
He hopes that the hybrid seeds that are being used by farmers in most other regional rice-producing nations will also be made available to Malaysian padi farmers.“Our seeds are not hybrid and are weak. That is why they are easily damaged by BLS, BLB or BPB.
“Hybrid seeds are sturdier and can fight infection better,” he said, adding that the bacteria could not be completely eradicated as they could be dormant and come to life all of a sudden.
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Asri said to counter the bacterial infection in order to increase yield, padi farmers had no choice but to spend additional money to buy and use organic fertiliser and products to cultivate good bacteria.“Cultivating good bacteria to battle the destructive BLS, BLB or BPB can be helpful in increasing yield,” he added.
Meanwhile, Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations president Datuk Marimuthu Nadason said the government must realise that rice was the main staple food in Malaysia.
“Since there is a shortage here, the government must source for new markets so that Malaysia will have the bargaining power to negotiate better pricing,” he said, adding that Malaysia was currently importing rice from the same few markets and not shopping around for cheaper alternatives. Marimuthu also suggested that the government expand padi cultivation by using available idle land to plant rice.
Sekinchan assemblyman and Selangor executive councillor Ng Suee Lim said the authorities must also monitor the distribution chain as there was suspicion that local rice was being packaged and sold as imported variety.
“This is also one of the factors behind the shortage of locally-produced rice,” he claimed.
“There is a syndicate behind this and when they repackage local rice and sell it as an imported product, they will be selling it for between RM33 and RM35, which is higher than the RM26 price set for 10kg of local rice,’’ he said.
