WITHER PERAK'S ORNAMENTAL FISH INDUSTRY?

A friend of mine who is (or was) the Chairman of Perak Aquaculture Association has submitted a general plan to transform and modernise the ornamental fish industry in Perak to the State Government. That started somewhat in late 2002 and has dished out briefings after series of meetings to many in the State Government including the Menteri Besar himself, the Exco for Agriculture, the State Secretary, Director of the State Economic Planning Unit (2 actually) and of course not to mention the State Fisheries Department.

The plan is quite simple - to assist these farmers to use modern means & methods in ornamental fish production by adopting the latest techniques in fish breeding & fish keeping, good farm practices & management, fish health management and other hosts of simple means & methods.

The idea is not only to uphold Perak as the largest producer of ornamental fish in Malaysia, but more towards the largest producer of internationally-accepted quality ornamental fish producer and also the largest net exporter of ornamental fish. The world trade in ornamental fish accounts to more than US 20 billion per year and our share is only about RM 168 million a year. More than 75% of our ornamental fish produce is exported to Singapore and Singapore with their quality control system re-exported our ornamental fish to other parts of the world earning more than triple what the local farmers able to earn. Our farmers & most exporters simply do not have the ability to export live ornamental fish to markets of more than 15 hours away; whilst Singaporean exporters are able to serve markets as far away as 72 hours or more. That's the technical difference between our farmers and those of the Singaporeans.

Most (more than 90%) of the ornamental fish farmers in Perak are operating on illegal land. To induce the modern techniques and to transform them requires additional investment.

When the political tsunami took place in April 2008, all the proposals put foreward by the Chairman remains on the desk of the then political masters. Do the current political and administation masters have a serious look at these proposals? I have no idea at all. As it is, all that i can see is that these ornamental fish farmers are still producing and exporting to Singapore as usual as they have done 30 years ago and this old-aged practices will continue to be observed for the next 30 years or so (if ever their sons will readily and willing inherit their occupation).+

AGRICULTURE IS BUSINESS - IS IT ???

Malaysia was once a full fledged agricultural nation; producing commodities such as rubber, paddy, pepper. The came the palm oil revolution during the early 70's which saw changes in the country's setting and brought wealth (sic ??) to smallholders. The 80's onwards was the crossroad towards achieving industrial status; the government through MITI and MIDA were engrossed in obtaining foreign investments in the manufacturing sector. Likewise, all the State Goverments rushed in to established industrial estates with the hope of attracting these investors; it paid well for most of these states ....... if not all! Most international organisations such as the World Bank, OECD, IMF, UNCTAD etc praised Malaysia for its success!!!! That's a good job done by Tun Mahathir.

As a result of that, most land in Malaysia now are either planted with oil palm, rubber or turned into industrial estates not to mention residential and bussines enclaves. The less attractive agricultural procduce like paddy, vegetables fizzles away resulting in less production of such. And now we are facing the problem of insufficient supply of food. Malaysia is now the net importer of food items - in excess of RM 20 billion a year and on the increase.

Couple of years ago, the Mahathir administration launched the Third National Agricultural Policy with the emphasis to transform and modernise agriculture sector to be on par with agriculture activities in the developed nations. Efforts were channelled to increase productivity in certain choice produce and to make Malaysia self sufficient in certain other agriculture products.

When Abdullah Badawi took over the helm, his administration advocated the motto AGRICULTURE IS BUSINESS - a notion that labels all agriculture activities, especially the production of food products in Malaysia be treated as a business concern rather than a mere subsistent role. All is well, is it or isn't it?? These policies are being promoted at the federal level by the federal government. What about the State Governments? How do they perceived these policies and plans ? For all we know, as specifically spelt in the Federal Constitution, land is a State matter. In order to transform amd modernise these agricultural activities, one has has to look at land matters for all intent and purposes.

Most vegetable farmers in Malaysia are tilting on small plots of land illegally that are either still government's land or land already alienated to others. Their application for land titles and hence land ownership are usually fallen on deaf ears. At least 2 State Governments that i know of have a policy that agricultural practices of non-perenial plants and aquaculture practices (rearing of tiger prawns, freshwater fish, brackishwater fish & prawns and ornamental fish) can only be given land on TOL basis. TOL is Temporary Occupying Licence. These farmers were given only a specific number of years to yield their produce; some were given TOL only for a year!

Land on TOL is not bankable at all; meaning that the bankers would not accept these TOL land as collateral for loan applications. As such, these farmers make use of the land as it is and employ minimum investment. Worst still for those farmers who illegally toil others land!!!! How are these farmers able to transform and modernise themselves????

At the state level, there's hardly any concrete programmes to really promote the aims and objectives of the New Agriculture Policy especially pertaining to land law and practices.

We've yet to hear news from the "opposition"-led State Governments on this aspect.

Reduction in Road Tax ??

Have to be back; there's an interesting news by the Transport Minister dishing out plans to further reduce road tax on vehicles owned by the general public. Personally, i think that the road tax is already pretty cheap here in Malaysia. The headache when renewing the road tax is not the road tax rate itself but really the hefty MOTOR INSURANCE PREMIUM. I would suggest that the government should persuade the insurance companies to start down-sizing their insurance premium rate for the benefit of all Malaysians in the wake of ever increasing fuel prices.

What say you Malaysians ?????

1st day ............

This is my first try at blogging. This blog has just been created and posted today. I do hope to share my views on the events taking place in the world especially in my home country.

There's war going on somewhere; famine in certain less develpoed countries; excessive display of personal and family wealth in certain other parts; floods and natural disasters in China, Burma, the USA. Alas, the Malaysian Government has recently incerased the price of petrol and diesel by more than 40% - la la la la la la la la la. What choice do i have - sell the only car i have? less travell to save up petrol? Prices of goods and consumables is on the increase by the day; even the roti canai gas gone up by 20sen.

Truckers in Europe are demonstrating against fuel price increase; though not much heard of from our fellows in the US and Africa .........

It's certainly not cheap anymore to stay living in the planet called EARTH ???????

Will be cack tomorroW >>>