Agriculture: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

The theme of this paper is positioning Malaysian agriculture to meet the challenges posed by continued industrialization in the national economy and by changing demographic patterns and agricultural trade liberalization internationally. There are vast opportunities for the local agricultural sector but in order to capture them a number of strategic actions have to be undertaken to create conducive enabling environment, overcome inherent structural constraints and promote economic foundations for a more liberalized and sustainable agriculture. The strategies laid down by the third National Agricultural Policy 1998-2010 (NAP3), the second Industrial Master Plan (IMP2) and several other macro plans provide the basis for attaining a more competitive agricultural sector. The next section reviews briefly the situation and performance of the agricultural sector. This will be followed by a discussion of economic and structural constraints facing the sector and the how these need to be viewed in the light of national and international economic trends and changes. The fourth section will then elaborate on agricultural trade liberalization and how this will implicate Malaysian agriculture. In the subsequent section some recommendations on strategic actions will be put forward. The final section will provide the concluding remarks.