SERDANG: The country's rice self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) needs to be increased to at least 80% to ensure that supply is at a comfortable level, says Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu.
The Agriculture and Food Security Minister said the ministry would continue to improve the country's rice ecosystem and increase domestic rice production to ensure sufficient supply as an SSR rate of under 60% was not an adequate level for the country's food security.
"The efforts include encouraging companies and capable parties to open larger rice fields with the cooperation of state governments in providing suitable land.
"We want to increase productivity and strengthen the supply chain through expanding the use of technology… (and) encourage innovation and open up more opportunities for value creation throughout the industry chain," he said in his speech at a programme at Laman Padi in conjunction with the Malaysia Agriculture, Horticulture and Agrotourism Exhibition (Maha) 2026 here on Monday (Aug 31).
While the agriculture sector is now developing by combining the use of data, technology, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), innovation and entrepreneurship, while also paying attention to environmental sustainability, it needs to be accompanied by diligence and determination to ensure that the targeted increase in productivity can be achieved, he explained.
In another development, Mohamad said the Agriculture and Food Security Ministry wants to explore an approach to integrating giant freshwater prawn farming in rice fields to produce two sources of yield from the same agricultural area.
He said he saw the potential of this approach during his visit to a rice field area that integrated rice cultivation with giant freshwater prawn farming China two weeks ago.
"In that rice field, there are giant freshwater prawns, there are two yields, one from rice and one from prawns… the giant freshwater prawn fry were brought from Malaysia and breeding was carried out in China.
"We need to be more proactive in exploring the potential of integrating giant freshwater prawn farming with rice cultivation, considering that this approach has so far only been implemented on a small scale," he said.
Although Malaysia has more suitable weather conditions for giant freshwater prawn farming throughout the year compared with China, the potential to integrate such farming with rice cultivation has yet to be widely explored, he noted.
He said the approach could be studied for implementation in the future, especially in paddy areas with a reliable irrigation system, thereby allowing the same area to be utilised for the production of rice and giant freshwater prawns. – Bernama
