PUTRAJAYA, Feb 28 — Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today said that the local agriculture industry needs to be revamped to have large plantation estates and more cash crops as solutions.
In his opening speech at the start of a meeting between Johor government officials and the federal government members here, Dr Mahathir said that farmers have to think big and follow the British plantation industry discipline of making a good income, especially in the oil palm sector.
“We were introduced to oil palm planting by the British, during the British colonial era. When the British found that oil palm can be planted, and the product can be used to make cooking oil and others, we saw that they became really successful because of oil palm planting.
“However, we did not realise that they had set up large estates, and their estates were more than 10,000 acres, for example. Therefore, they reaped profit, while we the locals, copied the British way last time, but our estates were small holdings. Sometimes only two or three acres only.
“That’s why we need to change our approach to agriculture. If we have large plantations, part of it must be used to plant cash crops,” he added.
Dr Mahathir said that this was because oil palm trees take a long time to be ready for harvest, and those who run small plantations suffer the most when the price of the said commodity falls, then forcing the government to give subsidies.
The Langkawi MP also proposed to unite small plantations into large scale ones and have professional plantation managers oversee their operations.
