The importance of the agricultural sector to the Malaysian economy: analyses of inter-industry linkages

This paper assesses the importance of the agricultural sector to the economic growth in Malaysia. A hypothetical extraction method was used to quantify the relative strength of backward and forward linkages of the agricultural sector. For empirical analyses, we ran an extended input-output table that takes into account detailed agricultural sub-sectors. Findings suggested that the agricultural sector contributes mainly through forward linkages, implying that the output of this sector is demanded larger by other sectors, in particular the manufacturing sector as their input. Large-scale oil palm (estate and smallholdings) should be highlighted for growth policies due to strong pull effects on the rest of the economic sector

Food consumption and expenditures in Singapore: implications to Malaysia’s agricultural exports

Imports are the only source of food supply to Singapore. Such condition offers a very attractive proposition for agricultural oriented countries. The dependence on type of food imports is determined by consumer demand. This study intends to do an exploratory study on the current conditions of Singaporean food consumption and expenditures with implications on Malaysia as an important agricultural exporting country to Singapore. It is identified that Singaporean consumers tend to demand for high quality poultry, pork, seafood, vegetables, and fruits in future, particularly in response to income growth. At the mean time, Malaysia is seemingly rich in the production of these food commodities and commits to exports for the excess of the supplies. While facing competition from various countries, Malaysia still possesses various competitive advantages over the other countries

Changes in consumer energy intensity in Malaysia

This paper proposes an IO-SDA model based on Hybrid input-output table, to identify the source of changes in the energy intensity, energy input and consumption level in the Malaysian household. This study is conducted in two stages: first, to identify the multiplier (energy intensities) by using the Hybrid input-output analysis, and second, to identify the sources of change in the Malaysian household energy consumption (energy and non-energy based products) for the periods 1991 to 2000, 2000 to 2005, and 1991 to 2005 by using IO-SDA model. The major finding of this study is that total household energy consumption has increased rapidly, mainly because of an increase in private consumption by household and increase in energy use in the production sector for consumer goods. From this finding, government and policy-makers should give more attention to energy consumption by promoting renewable energy resources to avoid shortage of energy supply in the future. Currently, the Malaysian economy is greatly dependent on non-renewable energy

Vintage approach to forecasting palm oil production in Peninsular Malaysia

Oil palm is an important crop to the Malaysian economy. Due to its strategic significance there is a need to have a reliable estimate of the production of the commodity to facilitate decision-making by policymakers and industry participants. The vintage approach has been shown to be more efficient in taking into account the age of palms and their yield profile when estimating production compared with other methods. The study utilised the vintage approach adapted from Smit (2010). The findings suggest that the vintage model developed is capable of projecting as well as simulating the impact on the palm oil sector if a change or shock is injected into the system

Assessing dynamics of palm oil import demand: the case of six Asian countries

This article uses annual data to investigate the palm oil import demand in selected Asian countries (India, China, Japan, Bangladesh, Korea, and Pakistan) through using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique. The findings of the study show that the palm oil and substitute oils prices and the national income of the importing countries are significant determinants of palm oil demand across the six models. Other factors such as biofuel mandate, trade policies, and exchange rate also proved to be important factors affecting import demand for palm oil in some of these countries

Food Security: Self–Sufficiency of Rice in Malaysia

Malaysia’s stance on food security is largely translated in terms of achieving self-sufficiency in rice production at about 65-70% of the local consumption. Since Malaysia does not have the comparative advantage in rice production, it implements a wide range of market interventions to achieve the intended level of rice production. The policy instruments include among others: guaranteed minimum price for paddy, price control, price and input subsidies and import monopoly. These interventionist instruments may not be sustainable in the long-term as they incur a high budgetary burden to the government, misallocation of resources and liberalization demand from WTO. The industry faces challenges in terms of land competition for urbanization and industrial uses and declining soil fertility due to heavy use of chemical fertilizer. This paper examines the influence of the fertilizer and the cash subsidies, as well as land conversion and fertility on the level of self-sufficiency in rice. A system dynamics model is applied to analyse the causal and feedback relationships of these variables in the paddy production system framework. The study shows that Malaysia may not be able to sustain the targeted self-sufficiency level without adequate R&D to address the production constraints particularly below-optimum productivity and the threats of climate change. The consumption of rice on the other hand continues to rise due to the increase in population.   Keywords: Paddy and rice, Malaysia, system dynamics, policy analysis

Mobile Marketing Training towards Increasing Business: A Case Study of Agri-Food Micro-Enterprises

Mobile marketing (MM) refers to marketing through mobile platforms and has become a phenomenon in the business world. Many sectors utilize online applications for various business activities, including promotion and marketing. However, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially those in the agricultural sector, face numerous challenges in using and determining training that is appropriate to their level of ability. Therefore, the objective of this study is to discuss the use of digital marketing training management (DMTM) by agri-food micro-enterprises in Peninsular Malaysia. A total of seventeen participants took part in this case study, and data were collected through surveys and semi-structured interviews between March 2022 and December 2022. The results led to the development of a DMTM model for agri-food micro-enterprises

The implications of palm cooking oil price increases in Malaysia

Domestic palm oil consumption in Malaysia increased to about 3.37 million metric tons in 2022. This number is expected to increase further due to population growth and consumer preferences for palm oil cooking oil. However, in 2016, the government withdrew its subsidy on palm cooking oil, increasing its price by 48.9%. Recently, the government proposed to use a floating price for palm cooking oil. These changes have left direct and indirect impacts on food producers and consumers. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of an increase in the price of palm cooking oil on food producers (directly) and consumers (indirectly). This study applied the Leontief price modelling technique and simulated a scenario for the price changes in the production cost. The simulation results indicated that costs and prices changed. The results found that the most significant cost change came from restaurants, 52.0%, while other price changes were from oil palm (29.6%) and restaurants (17.4%). This study also used the profit index to calculate the profit food producers and services gained. Based on this scenario, food producers should revise their prices of goods and services since they still gain profit. It was recommended that the government revise the price of palm cooking oil by providing subsidies or incentives to the food producer or consumer. The fluctuation in palm oil prices impacts the price of palm cooking oil in the market. If the government does not revise cooking oil prices, it will affect food consumers and producers

Food security: Self sufficiency of rice in Malaysia

Malaysia’s stance on food security is largely translated in terms of achieving self‐sufficiency in rice production at about 65‐70% of the local consumption. Since Malaysia does not have the comparative advantage in rice production, it implements a wide range of market interventions to achieve the intended level of rice production. The policy instruments include among others: guaranteed minimum price for paddy, price control, price and input subsidies and import monopoly. These interventionist instruments may not be sustainable in the long term as they incur high budgetary burden to the government, misallocation of resources and liberalization demand from WTO. The industry faces challenges in terms of land competition for urbanization and industrial uses and declining soil fertility due to heavy use of chemical fertilizer. This paper examines the influence of the fertilizer and cash subsidies, as well as land conversion and fertility on the level of self sufficiency in rice. A system dynamics model is applied to analyse the causal and feedback relationships of these variables in the paddy production system framework. The study shows that Malaysia may not be able to sustain the targeted self sufficiency level without adequate R&D to address the production constraints particularly below‐optimum productivity and the threats of climate change. The consumption of rice on the other hand continues to rise due to increase in population