Pre-Budget 2015: What the agro-based industries need

Three guests were featured in this episode -- Humaira Agriculture Enterprise founder Norfadzilah Zaidi, whose company produces Humaira Honey or madu kelulut; Rotikaya Farm partner Sharizan Salleh, whose business provides livestock for 'korban' and 'aqeeqah', and KMS Agronomi Sdn Bhd managing director Muhammad Sidek Osman, a rockmelon producer.

The discussion, hosted by Astro AWANI Group Editor-in-Chief Suhaimi Sulaiman, mostly centred around how the government can help to boost the productivity of their agro industries to compete against imported products.

On honey farming, Norfadzilah explained that Malaysian need not go far to search for good quality honey as "local products are the best for local people."

"The best honey that locals should consume, should come from local grounds. This is because bees work in such a way that they acclimatise themselves to their surroundings. Whatever honey the local honey bees produce here is tailor-made to fit the body temperature of the local people," she said when asked by Suhaimi on the public's perception that Manuka honey was deemed the 'healthiest' type of honey.

For Sharizan, he revealed that the one thing farmers need the most from the government, is land.

"To empower local farmers, they need a lot of land so they can produce ample, quality livestock and the government can do away with a lot less imports. Our national food security can also be better safeguarded this way.

"The government currently purchases 20 million ton metrics of foreign dairy produce annually. We can save so much money if we are able to produce this much on home soil," he said.

As for Muhammad Sidek, his contention was on the lack of awareness on fertigated produce and conventional ones. Because of this, he said, the fertigated rockmelons produced by his company was losing out on profit. Despite the produce being a high-end one, the pricing set by the market was not competitive enough.

"In Malaysia, local producers still go for quantity over quality. They have yet to fully comprehend that quality products can fetch a premium price from a premium market, and rockmelon is certainly a premium product," he said.

All three agro-industry operators agreed that a bigger allocation for agriculture in next year's Budget 2015, expected to be tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Oct 10, was essential to boost their productivity and market.