Kota Kinabalu: National rice stockist, Bernas, said there has been a decline in padi production in Sabah since 2004 although the number of farmers and acreage registered with it had been increasing.
A puzzled Bernas Chief Executive Officer, Mohd Kamaluddin Haji Mohd Effendie, said: "Either the farmers are planting less, or are not able to plant more or yield more. We need to study and look at the root cause to understand what are the reasons."
He also noted that Sabah farmers are also ageing. "If you are ageing you might not be able to do more," he told Daily Express in an exclusive interview. Another reason could also be that they are shifting to other more profitable crops.
Unlike peninsula that is 70 per cent self-sufficient in the grain, he said Sabah's case was the exact opposite with sufficiency at only 30 per cent and 70pc having to be imported from Vietnam, Thailand and to a certain extent countries like India.
source : Daily Express ,Published on: Sunday, October 16, 2011
