Food prices are rising, supply chains remain fragile and climate shocks are hitting harder. In this episode of ASEAN KITA, we explore the region’s battle for food security what’s being done, what’s failing and what’s next.
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00:00Terima kasih kerana menonton!
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01:20Biasanya kami boleh mengatakan bahawa kami sedang terbuka kepada segi makanan di seluruh ASEAN.
01:26tetapi ASEAN sebenarnya telah menjadi sebuah region, sebuah blok ekonomi.
01:34Sebuah blok ekonomi ini, saya rasa selama beberapa masa.
01:38Dan ASEAN, dengan blok ekonomi yang lebih banyak dari 660 juta orang,
01:44dan di projek untuk mengembangkan kepada 723 juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta juta.
01:58Jadi masalahnya adalah kurang asean ini berkembang cepat juta juta ini.
02:02Dan kita melihat bahawa banyak negara di Asia,
02:04dari Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Filipina, Malaysia,
02:08dan Malaysia yang berkembang dan Singapura itu,
02:10ada banyak berkembang rangka-angkaan yang berkembang.
02:13Dan pada mesin, kami juga berambah peningkat Red Bull,
02:21yang baik tetapi segera itu akan mengembangkan ke taman.
02:23Kemudian ada ada bulatan urbanan,
02:27tentu saja, perubahan maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat
02:31jadi semua ini berubah mengubah maklumat maklumat
02:36dan kita lebih berubah kepada perubahan maklumat maklumat
02:42restriksinya, restriksinya, perubahan pemerintah,
02:45penggunaan proteksyenisme, yang terlihat, Trump,
02:49blok perubahan, dan banyak negara yang melihat perubahan maklumat
02:54Amirul, saya akan memberikan contohnya pada masa pandemik
03:00ketika ada penurunan maklumat maklumat
03:04kerana konflik antara Rusia dan Ukraina
03:09dan itu membuat penurunan maklumat maklumat maklumat
03:12sebenarnya pada masa itu, India yang terbesar
03:16maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat
03:20kerana maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumatnya
03:24dan ia menghentikan maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat
03:27pada tahun 2022 kerana sebahagian untuk mengawal
03:31harga maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat
03:33di India. Jadi ini adalah contohnya
03:37maklumat maklumat maklumat maklumat
03:41mengatakan bahawa ini adalah
03:43percayaan dan kemungkinan.
03:45dan ASEAN itself, South-East Asia
03:49is basically recognized as one of the world most
03:52susceptible in terms of climate change.
03:57We know this area, our area is a region highly vulnerable
04:01to the adverse effects of climate change
04:04yeah, increased temperatures, changing rainfall patterns
04:08yeah, which basically disturbed a lot of
04:10agriculture patterns, extreme weather, drought, flux, you name it, we have it.
04:16So these climate related changes directly affect
04:20ASEAN agriculture productivity leading to year losses, crop failures, and livestock death.
04:27So it is very important issues to be discussed, Mirom.
04:32And then yeah, that's what how we start off our session with.
04:37Rightly, so Prof, you mentioned that it is an important issue to be discussed
04:41with the vulnerability of ASEAN in terms of food security.
04:45So do you think that food security is being given the urgency that is needed
04:50and political weight it truly deserved by ASEAN leaders?
04:53Or is it still being treated as a background issue in this, Prof?
04:57I think ASEAN itself recognizes this is a critical problem.
05:02If you look at all the efforts, it has been shown in the media actually,
05:05but one of the recent one would be in September 2023 in Jakarta,
05:12whereby all the ASEAN leaders has a declaration on strengthening the food security,
05:17nutrition in response to the crisis.
05:20So if you go back further, in 1968, historically, ASEAN cooperation in the agriculture and food sector
05:27later back as early as that, yeah, looking at the cooperation in food production and supply.
05:33and then some more in 2015, up to the plan to 2020, there was something they call it ASEAN
05:41integrated food security. We also call it AIFS, a framework of strategy plan to action on food security.
05:49And then furthermore, there is also something we call ASEAN food security reserve board, or AFSRB.
05:58Yeah, it was established to review, monitor, and evaluate the situation of food security,
06:04yeah, across the globe, across ASEAN as a region, and at country levels.
06:09In order to support all this, all the ASEAN member states basically agreed to develop ASEAN food security
06:15information system. So it's very there, it's there, the system is there.
06:19then even we have ASEAN plus three, which means including of China, Japan, and Korea.
06:26It's basically, it's basically for rice reserve, or we call it APTER, just to strengthen the food security
06:34cooperation in the region through systematic data collection, analysis, yeah, in terms of dissemination
06:41of food security, all these are there. So we cannot say that the government of each of the
06:48respective ASEAN countries did not take care about this, and they are, and because they're just not
06:53being highlighted in the media. And basically, here in the 2015 or so, there was a strategic ban of ASEAN,
07:02cooperation of food, agriculture, even forestry, which actually end today, sorry, this year, 2025.
07:11It was started in 2016, up to 2025, which basically defines the vision, the goals for food, agriculture,
07:19and forestry sector. So all in all, I think it has been very much, recall that, aligned, yeah, to all the,
07:31between all the ASEAN countries in terms of food security. They have something in mind as
07:36as old as 1968, yeah, so that is more than 50 years, yeah, and until now, and it's still been
07:43looked at, yeah, and the latest one would be in the 2023, as I mentioned in Jakarta, all the leaders
07:49have made a declaration, especially after the pandemic years. The pandemic years was the one that
07:55highlight the vulnerability of all the countries in ASEAN.
08:00Prof, you mentioned just now that there are plans in place, for example, the AIFS, ASEAN Integrated Food Security,
08:08meaning there are some sort of understanding between the ASEAN states and ASEAN state leaders. But
08:14in the event of a sudden food supply disruption that is quite concerning right now with the tensions of
08:22US and China relations and geopolitical risk and all that, do you think this response or this plan is enough
08:30in order for us as a region to ensure the food disruption is at a minimal level, Prof?
08:37Prof, good question. In fact, this is well at least we must have a plan, yeah, and
08:43we plan and Allah is the best planner of all. You know we put all the plans together and
08:50the other thing is how about the execution of the plan. So as we know food security is the fundamental concern
08:57for everybody, all the countries, yeah, it's because without enough food it will create a lot of social
09:06destabilize the whole region and we had this problem and sometimes go in temuleste we had
09:12that in last time in jakarta yeah when the people tummy is not full then they will start you know
09:19having this problem writing and so on so uh whatever the plan yeah whatever it must be
09:27cognitive and asian doesn't look only in asian as i mentioned it was also asian plus three yeah
09:32of course it's looking only at the staple food of asian which basically rice the other one is
09:37corn or maize yeah and then in even looking at this role even asian food security reserve yeah
09:45in 1979 played the biggest role in terms of rice supply for asia that is our staple food in this
09:52part of the world not wheat so in terms of food policies uh they are there yeah but whatever it
09:59is um it has been challenged during the pandemic yes so that's why in 2023 all the leaders look at
10:06this as something that critical yeah need to luckily it wasn't prolonged yeah for for some time and then
10:13the price came back yeah to what it was uh prior to ban the bank so whatever it is there is always
10:22be a challenge yeah especially with the as you said geopolitical uh yeah geopolitical uh risk yeah
10:28and in terms of uh disruption to the global supply chain which will have uh immediate effect on on on
10:36on our food supply and this must be looked at and from time to time as long as the uh the plan is not
10:43static must be dynamic and it must be evaluated according to the dynamic changes of the of the of the market
10:52of the global uh whatever the issue is prof some have proposed a collective asean uh food emergency
10:59reserve in your view is this is that real realistic or and what would it take politically and and also
11:07practically to make it something like that happen prof we we need to have that you have the
11:12measure being the uh the chairman of asean need to take it as a step further to look at uh a collective
11:19food emergency reserve so as we can see that different countries we have 10 countries in asean
11:24we can see that like singapore and thailand are more advanced in this food supply they have modern
11:29technology but you look at countries like myanmar laos yeah and then these countries are like timoleste
11:36they are lacking in terms of uh yeah in terms of planning on the food security so we need to have uh yeah of
11:43course when we want to do this at the original level there were issues like financial resources there were
11:48issues like logistics and transport yeah how we're going to coordinate i would suggest that we
11:54have the uh the afsrb yeah maybe after this we need a board which basically implement all this uh yeah
12:03planning yeah at the uh at the original level yeah you must you must have all the members of the 10
12:09countries so that we have to see this in the big picture as the growth of population as i mentioned
12:15growing from 660 million people to 723 million people but 2023 this is something really serious
12:22to look at and malaysia basically have to uh bring this up to another level just uh since we are talking
12:29about this since 1968 yeah it's not uh something that is not uh feasible yeah it is totally we already
12:37have uh the basis that we already have the platform it teaches that we have to take this
12:41challenge and uh yeah uh step uh step up yeah from what is now well we'll just getting started and next
12:51we will start talking about we will zoom in more about the malaysia's position in terms of food security
12:56but stay with us and more on asian kita right after this
13:14welcome back to asian kita and we're speaking with professor aimy zul hasmi about asean's battle for
13:20food security and the urgent question of whether this region can withstand future shocks to our food
13:27systems and now we want to talk about malaysia's position in terms of food security prof zooming into
13:33malaysia how would you compare our level of food self-sufficiency and release resilience compared to
13:40our asian neighbors are we leading or are we lagging or somewhere in the middle prof uh i would say uh we are
13:47somewhere in the middle but we are lagging behind the leading uh which is uh singapore yeah by by all
13:54means singapore not only leading in region but also the leading uh leading uh globally as well in terms of
14:00food security because they understand their position being a small country which is not so sufficient
14:05they have to rely on import foods i think they have basically built a good uh yeah food security system
14:12for singapore everything from rice others as well uh so we have basically a lot to learn from
14:19how singapore do it and for us i was made known that we may have a supply level not more like like
14:25three to maximum six months yeah then if anything prolonged in terms of supply then we have a problem
14:32so in terms of self-sufficiency food security it is a security issue in malaysia
14:38and uh these are all all uh happening as we can see and it's a bigger issue recognized by the
14:44government but uh unfortunately not much been done on this uh especially we are relying a lot of
14:51imported foods items yeah uh yeah coming into malaysia but we can't say that we're not doing yeah um we
14:58can't say that uh this is not something that we can yeah we can live with yeah we look at singapore even
15:05though yeah it's a small country but it has enough uh for for the citizen but we have to look
15:10at how we can do this yeah uh we can still import foods how we're going with the storage how about the
15:17rice yeah how about not only rice how about other food so malaysia uh just like other countries in asia
15:24and globally we are being challenged yeah in terms of uh land usage for agriculture uh i would say based on
15:32the data one fifth yeah of the agricultural land available is only planted for food crops
15:41and the rest like five over yeah four over fifth is basically commercial plot like palm oil
15:48so that is the reason and that also includes that one thing also include like you go to cameron highland
15:53vegetable and all those things but for fifth because we are being the second largest producer of palm oil
15:58so the focus is more on the on the commercial plantation instead of uh yeah food crops so uh that
16:07what makes it more than before important yeah uh for this and then as well as the face of
16:15industrialization growing numbers of uh yeah population which basically need more houses as well so it is a big
16:23challenge uh yeah i mean role for formation in terms of self-sufficiency uh self-sufficiency food
16:29security yeah in terms of supply overall yeah which is not uh an odd problem which is a common problem in
16:37a lot of developing countries you mentioned that we are somewhere in the middle and quite you know far
16:43away from singapore which is far more advanced in terms of food security do you think the government has that
16:49political will and actually we are moving towards uh in terms of becoming a more self-sufficiency in terms of
16:55our political will because i remember uh minister uh uh uh minister that uh uh
16:57uh that's really uh that's really uh that's really a sexy topic uh for any government to
17:00to do some sort of initiative towards it to fix the problem to make sure that the country is
17:05self-sufficient in terms of food security and also agriculture do you think the government do you see now do you evaluate
17:12them have that kind of political will and actually we are moving towards uh in terms of becoming a more self-sufficiency in terms of
17:19our food security uh i think the current government is facing uh restructuring of the the the economy
17:26actually uh everything we can talk about the uh subsidy besasa targeted subsidy yeah from the from the
17:32fuel yeah as well as the other uh consumer products yeah so this one of the issue they want to overcome with
17:40first okay then maybe next one will be the food security hopefully um because the subsidy uh given to the
17:49yeah given a lot i think even exceeded the amount of the development under the uh under the budget
17:56yeah annual budget that we give every year so we must try to reduce this this uh yeah wholesale i would
18:03call it instead of targeted subsidy right then we can look at the food security but food security is
18:09critical issue the more that we wait yeah the more uh is yeah we put ourselves at risk and the way the
18:16geopolitical uh yeah issues that are ongoing the many many factors uh it is highly uh i think we have
18:24to start somewhere yeah we we can't wait until that we implement around 95 only then to start the the uh
18:31the uh yeah this uh issue on food security and uh and as i said earlier that uh we imported now i think close to
18:4170 not mistaken around 76 billion ringgit of food annually as of 2020 2023 so that has grown a lot
18:50yeah from i think in 2018 was only about around 46 billion okay maybe the amount of food has increased
18:58but actually what we are having is basically the inflated yeah important inflation that coming into
19:05Malaysia causing the price of goods to to uh yeah to increase this is something that we need to look at
19:10as well and if we be able to prepare for our our food security issues we have yeah we have to look at also
19:18the storage we have to look at the pricing uh yeah of the goods that we imported so total reliance on on
19:26yeah of course uh we imported uh beef from india yeah you import like agriculture products from
19:33indonesia it's cheaper but at the same time we have to go really big on agriculture how we're going to go
19:38on the modern agriculture and uh it's not something impossible we can look at countries like we can
19:44learn from thailand thailand is very advanced in terms of agriculture the government emphasize a lot of
19:50agriculture technology that one uh the most successful country in the world in agriculture a
19:56small time a small country uh used to be the same size population as malaysia but now slightly smaller
20:02than malaysia is netherland the netherland is one of the biggest provinces of agriculture crops for the
20:10world and then how they managed to do it so we must learn from from from these two countries how they go
20:17about in terms of maybe this or different weather yeah maybe because four seasons and all those
20:22things but under the modern agriculture that is no longer an issue and we can look at how thailand
20:29yeah and we also must also look at the main issue here in malaysia in terms of food supply
20:34became more expensive how we're going to control the storage is the cartels yeah the supply chain yeah the
20:40the middlemen who are controlling the price and so on the importers and even though the current
20:46government has uh devoid the use of the apis and all those things but still the same people are
20:52still controlling the uh the whatever you say yeah any any food that is imported yeah even though we have
20:59chicken and eggs yeah locally produced but the maize actually imported yeah from overseas why can't we use
21:07our own because sometimes it was talking about uh the waste from the uh oil pump yeah yeah all those
21:17things we have developed that but it never occurred why i still we still are importing uh maize from from
21:24from ukraine and other countries why because all this uh basically controlled by certain cartels so these are the
21:31things that we we must look at and the government must basically intervene uh looking at the uh the
21:37at the supply chain how we're going to do it because it's not only about storage it's all about logistics
21:42it's all about not only about supply these resources how we control all this so in terms of coordination
21:49there's a lot of effort needed yeah there's no on the uh on the government side and they must work in hand in
21:56hand with the with the with the businesses yeah especially the uh the small medium industries we
22:03need to grow our smes our smes most of our smes in malaysia the micro smes they're all involved in food
22:10production yeah food related industry either restaurants yeah food businesses and whatnot yeah so this is
22:18something that we need to really seriously look at yeah and something we need to learn fast from our
22:24neighbor or yeah from from netherlands prof uh we are seeing the return of trade protectionism
22:32and and the rising of geopolitical uncertainty given this landscape how risky it is for the region to
22:39still be so dependent on food imports from outside the region prof uh as as i mentioned uh earlier yeah um
22:48i meant that that that we need to really look at yeah malaysia uh alone is not enough yeah we need
22:55to move us as a straight block and asian is not only a political block you need to be a very strong
23:00economic block yeah you need to be like eu yeah you need to be like like other uh successful trade blocks
23:06to to negotiate with other trade blocks yeah when we have like protectionism coming in why can't asian also do
23:13the same on negotiation basis why can't asian also yeah trade with other with eu and so on we have
23:20issues like for example um like uh our our palm oil yeah our palm oil exported with eu exported to eu and
23:28then we have all this ban all those things so this if we move together as asian instead of just malaysia
23:33and indonesia currently then we have a bigger voice so in terms of food security wise yeah so this is
23:41something that we need to look at we need to work as a team yeah because uh collectively we are
23:47stronger yeah collectively we can uh influence many uh many uh i think issues globally and then we need
23:55to look at um this relationship because people also looking at the asian itself being about 700 million
24:02people strong and with a rising middle income middle class income and then with all the purchasing power and
24:09with all the rich natural resources in in our part of the world and asian stands to do that so
24:17malaysia being the uh the chairman of asian need to look at this more uh globally yeah looking at uh
24:27leading leading the chair yeah leading the block to a higher level we could not be uh what we were i
24:33think asian has been established for decades and then uh looking at this critical issues in
24:40policy geopolitical race with the supply destruction on global global supply chain with uh reducing land
24:48for uh yeah reducing land for agriculture urbanization yeah growing population a really comprehensive plan i might
24:58we need that to do that and it's not only planned it must be properly executed it must be a steering
25:03committee yeah at asian level to drive this implement yeah to drive all these implementations
25:11prof with the final minutes that we have um i want to talk about the climate change impact also as well for
25:17the region we already seeing the effects of uh climate volatility extreme weather floods all over southeast
25:25asia uh how is this affecting agricultural productivity in in in real terms and are we
25:30adapting fast enough we are definitely not definitely not uh there are certain countries which quite
25:37i think i'm impressed with like thailand they have a lot of young people going into agriculture
25:43because thailand really emphasis a lot on the agriculture industry they are really for example they have apps
25:49which tracks rain which track drought so they can basically the the the farmers can basically
25:56install these apps and can understand when the rain gonna be so all this modern technique technology
26:02must be adapted yeah so not only thailand and this kind of technology this app must be uh transferred to
26:09the whole aSEAN region so this technology we must learn together so this is what we need to do and then
26:15using technology a lot of r&d malaysia yeah and especially singapore they're very advanced in the
26:22in the vertical farming how they're utilizing uh yeah how they utilize very limited space and then produce
26:29uh yeah a lot of a lot of a lot of crops a lot of produce so this is something that that we need to
26:35to look at of course you at a country that uh in terms of infrastructure they are lacking like myanmar
26:42laos even cambodia yeah but something that we can look at and this is where how we work together
26:48with aSEAN plus three so we hope that the aSEAN plus three the other three countries china korea yeah
26:55and they will come together and japan yeah invest in in our part of the world because we have a very
27:00fertile land we have a good weather even though we have this as we'll call that uh yeah this problem with
27:08our weather but still in terms of fertilization in terms of the resources we are there so we need
27:15more uh investment not only in terms of technology industrial not only about manufacturing we also need
27:21investment in terms of agriculture is that we need to produce more goods china is the biggest producer of
27:28wheat india is the second largest producer of wheat so how how can we do that yeah and then we know that
27:36countries like like uh myanmar thailand cambodia they are good producers of rice which is something
27:43to look at and then we need we don't need to uh basically uh uh follow other plans we need to have
27:51our own unique yes uh agriculture plan for for our own regions uh and the background of changing as you
27:59said climate change yeah quite rapidly yeah we cannot expect yeah so we must use technology on
28:04that and and yeah that is also uh the issue as you mentioned also geopolitics yeah which we must be able
28:12to to to balance and of course the current uh china and and the united states yeah uh yeah uh debates yeah
28:23whether we'll go on or not okay thank you very much uh that brings us to the end of the episode
28:29of asean kita today uh what clear is this food security isn't just about farming or trade it's about
28:35strategy and survival and as asean move forward the choices we make today will decide whether our region
28:41can fit itself tomorrow a big thank you to professor aimy zul hazmi for the insights and to you for watching
28:47until next time i'm amraiman have a good day