SARAWAK’S contribution to the national agriculture sector increased from RM11.8 billion or 14.3 per cent in 2010 to RM14.7 billion or 16.8 per cent last year.
Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah said the state’s contribution to the national agriculture sector was ranked third in 2010 and first last year.
“At the state level, the agriculture sector’s contribution to the state’s economy is equally important. Last year, the agriculture sector contributed 13.5 per cent to the state GDP (gross domestic product),” he said in his ministerial winding-up speech yesterday.
Uggah said crops contributed 68.1 per cent followed by forestry and logging at 22.4 per cent, fisheries – 5 per cent, and livestock – 4.5 per cent.
The growth in the crops sub-sector was mainly driven by commodities, especially oil palm, rubber, pepper and sago, while poultry and swine were the main contributors to the growth of the livestock sub-sector, he added.
However, he regretted growth of the state’s agriculture sector decelerated from 2 per cent in 2015 to -2.5 per cent last year.
“The contribution dropped to RM14.7 billion last year, from RM15.1 billion in 2015. This was significantly due to the drop in production in both crude palm oil from 3.5 million tonnes to 2.5 million tonnes and palm kernel oil from 0.7 million tonnes to 0.5 million tonnes despite slight improvement in the export price of crude palm oil from RM2,500 per tonne to RM2,956 per tonne,” he pointed out.
Uggah said he is optimistic the situation would improve this year with a projected growth of 1.9 per cent, with the increase in both crude palm oil and palm kernel oil production in first half year.
Crude palm oil production increased from 1.5 million tonnes for the first half of last year to 2.6 million tonnes for the same period this year while the production of palm kernel oil registered an increase from 0.4 million tonnes to 0.5 million tonnes.
“Another important and encouraging trend in the state agriculture sector is the agriculture trade balance. It has been positive for 2010–2016.
“The surplus has increased from RM4 billion in 2010 to RM6.9 billion last year. In other words, the export value of agriculture products is always exceeding the import value. This has a positive impact to the overall state trade balance,” he said.
Despite this, the state’s food trade balance experienced a growing deficit of RM2.2 billion in 2010 to RM3.3 billion last year because of the large scale importation of cereals and animal feed.
Uggah stressed the state needs to increase its food production, particularly in rice, cereals, animal feed, beef, mutton and dairy products, while developing other commodities and high value crops like durian, coconut, pineapple and banana.
“These crops have huge potential for export markets. Ultimately, this is to achieve our objective of becoming the net exporter of food and food products,” he said.
The deputy chief minister also called for the state’s agriculture sector to be private sector driven.
He said the private sector has the latest technology, huge capital, management skills and readily available global market access.
“The roles of my ministry are to facilitate their investment in the state agriculture sector and to effectively organise our farmers to participate in the agriculture business ventures,” added Uggah.