PUTRAJAYA, May 12 — The call for Datuk Seri Najib Razak to quit as the prime minister and Umno president is merely a naughty prank in politics, said Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

Ismail Sabri, who is also an Umno Supreme Council member, said that basically the support for Najib’s leadership remained intact, whether it was from Umno or from the people.

Speaking at a media conference after officiating at the Plant Biosecurity Symposium here today, he said the threat to Najib’s leadership came only from a “very small group” and most of the accusations were made without any basis or clear evidence.

“It is (expressed) only by a small group of individuals; it is not the desire of party members as a whole,” he said, adding that the meeting between the prime minister and Umno divisional chiefs at a luncheon yesterday went smoothly.

On the symposium, he said it was hoped that it could become a platform to provide an understanding on the importance of the implementation of plant biosecurity to protect the agriculture industry from attacks by pests, especially those brought in from abroad.

He said the entry of dangerous foreign pests, such as those that caused papaya diseases, had to be curbed because in 2013, for instance, the pests caused papaya exports to drop to RM30 million from RM99 million in 2002.

Among the biosecurity measures to protect the national agricultural industry were the inspection of agricultural products at entry points as well as at plantations and packaging centres abroad before their import, he said.

He said the understanding of pesticide control through the implementation of more effective biosecurity activities and good agricultural practices needed to be applied by every farmer for export products.

Export products must comply with the phytosanitary requirements and regulations of the importing countries, such as Japan which has set 13 measures for each product to gain market access there. — Bernama