Lok Sabha: Only five food commodities achieve a survival rate of over 90 percent

KUALA LUMPUR, 8 Oct: Only five major food commodities in the country recorded a Self-Rate Rate (SSR) above 90 per cent by 2025, with duck meat recording the highest rate of 127.1 per cent.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Datuk Chan Foong Hin said the four other commodities are chicken eggs and duck eggs at 108.4 percent, tropical fruits (96.7 percent), chicken meat (91.8 percent) and food fish (90.8 percent).

He said that for other commodities, fresh milk recorded an SSR of 81.8 per cent, while tropical vegetables reached 82.2 per cent, indicating local production for both categories was almost sufficient to meet domestic needs.

"The overall vegetable self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) is 46.6 percent due to import dependence for medium and high-value varieties of vegetables.

"For rice, the SSR recorded 54.3 percent", he said.

He said this in response to a call from Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal (WARISAN-Semporna) who wanted to know the latest developments of the country's main food producing SSR as well as the risk mitigation plan for the food supply chain involving Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Commenting further, Foong Hin said the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MFA) has developed a food supply risk mitigation plan to reduce dependence on imports as well as ensure continuity of domestic supplies.

Among the measures implemented were increasing production of low-SSR vegetables such as chili, cabbage and halia, in addition to developing local onion industry.

He said the government was targetingproductionone million metric tons of vegetables and 5,000 metric tons of local onions over the period of Malaysia's Thirteenth Plan (RMK-13).

In the rice and rice sector, the government has implemented five-season rice planting projects over a period of two years in the MADA area, as well as upgrading irrigation infrastructure including in Sabah and Sarawak. -TVS