Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2012/01/04/not-enough-rice-to-eat/

‘Not enough rice to eat’

Patrick Lee

| January 4, 2012

A rice shortage and a worsening self-sufficiency on food could force many Malaysians to go hungry.

PETALING JAYA: Millions of Malaysians could go hungry as unpredictable weather in rice -producing countries is likely to affect our supply of rice.

Unpredictable weather in rice-producing countries, spurred by Malaysia’s rising population, could mean less food on the table, warned Kota Belud MP Abdul Rahman Dahlan.

“If they have major flooding in rice-producing countries, such as Vietnam or Thailand, or assuming they go to war, where are we going to get our rice?” he asked.

Citing the 2008 global rice shortage as an example, he added: “If the crisis then lasted for another five or six months, we would all have had to learn to eat tapioca.”

“This is no laughing matter. Our national rice stockpile was being consumed very rapidly, and we couldn’t buy rice quickly.”

Abdul Rahman said this in response to concerns raised by the World Bank over the country’s worsening food self-sufficiency levels.

According to the Malaysia Economic Monitor (Smart Cities) report, the country’s self-sufficiency in rice shrunk to 62% in 2007 from 71% in 1970.

It added that the country’s rice fields, and even the production of “most basic food items” could not keep up with Malaysia’s rising population.

“The domestic production of basic food items like rice, freshwater fish, various meat products…was unable to meet domestic consumption. Their self-sufficiency trend also worsened over the long run,” the report said.

This, it added, resulted in Malaysia relying on imports to feed its people.

This growing reliance as well as the billions of ringgit being spent to keep it going worried the Kota Belud’s Umno MP.

Abdul Rahman said that the country’s decline in food self-sufficiency may have been due to changing economic policies.

He said that former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad seemed to favour industrialisation over agriculture, a trend that was not reversed until much later.

Government still slow

Abdul Rahman added that the government had increased its national rice stockpile from 92,000 to 292,000 metric tons in recent years; able to feed the whole country for up to six months if disaster were to strike.

Despite this and the pursuit of more aggressive farming policies, Abdul Rahman said that the government was still “not fast enough”.

“There must be a minimum of self-sufficiency on all products, and there will be some foods that will be more important than others, like rice and beef.”

“(The current) self-sufficiency level is at 65% to 70%, but it would be safer if it was at 80%…100% is not possible as it would be too expensive,” he said.

East Malaysia, he said, was especially at risk if these levels did not improve. Only 30% of the rice in the Peninsular, he said, was imported.

Seventy percent of Sabah and Sarawak’s rice, Abdul Rahman claimed, had to be imported.

“Say there’s a disaster or a security problem…it would be difficult to transport rice from the Peninsular to Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.

This was one of the reasons why the government, Abdul Rahman said, was looking into boosting rice production, such as through the building of the Tambatuon dam in his constituency.

According to him, Kota Belud’s padi fields (more than 20,000 acres in total) currently produced a mere 1.5 tons of rice per season, much lower than the optimal minimum of 4 tons.

The dam, he added, would pump up irrigation in these fields.

However, the move was attacked by the opposition late last year, amidst fears by local villagers that their lands would be submerged in water.

Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2012/01/17/hunger-may-stalk-the-land/

Food crisis looming

Patrick Lee

| January 17, 2012

Malaysia's heavy reliance on food imports will see many of its citizens starve when the global economy goes bust, a food expert warned.

PETALING JAYA: Millions of Malaysians will starve when the global economy crumbles, a food expert warned.

Former Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) professor Mohd Peter Davis said that imported food – something Malaysia is heavily reliant on – would not come when the world is hit by a massive economic crisis.

“The whole world economy right now is on the brink of collapse, particularly the European Union and US. They (food-producing countries) will be desperate to feed their own citizens, so we can’t rely on anyone to feed us in the collapse of an economy.”

“We only produce enough food to feed at most half the population, with our resources… and we’re not keeping up with the population increase,” he told FMT in an interview.

Mohd Peter was referring to Malaysia’s worsening food self-sufficiency levels amidst fears of an impending global economic crisis.

According to the World Bank’s Malaysia Economic Monitor (Smart Cities) report, the country’s self-sufficiency in rice shrunk to 62 percent in 2007 from 71 percent in 1970.

The report also noted the country’s worrying decline in meat production as well as the growing of fruits and vegetables. In fact, it added: “At the product level, most basic food items except eggs increasingly rely on imports.”

According to a 2010 Malaysian Insider report, Malaysia produced only 25 percent of its local beef consumption and five percent of its domestic milk supply.

Problem not visible

Mohd Peter, however, said the problem was not readily visible, especially with the seemingly large supply of food for Malaysia’s 28.3 million people.

“The problem is not visible, because we’ve got more food than ever before… So it’s not on the people’s mind. We have a tremendous variety (of food), and it keeps getting better every year.”

“But what people don’t realise is that nearly all of this food comes from imports,” he said, citing rice-producing countries such as Vietnam and Thailand as examples.

Even worse, Mohd Peter warned, was the threat of war in the event of an economic meltdown.

The food expert used the Japanese Occupation of Malaya during the Second World War, and the allied forces’ naval blockade as an example.

According to Jim Baker’s “Crossroads” (A Popular History of Malaysia & Singapore), Malaya had “imported half the food it consumed” prior to the war.

“Japanese inability to keep the sea lanes open made many imports inaccessible,” it read, adding that urban Malayans were hit hardest by the food shortages.

Relying on local livestock was not going to help either, the former UPM professor said. He claimed that much, if not most animal feed, was imported.

Economic solution

Yet as far as Mohd Peter was concerned, Malaysia was already too late. He said that the only way the country could save itself, was to do everything it could to stop the world’s economy from going bust.

“Malaysia should do everything possible to throw its weight behind an economic solution to the world. If the economic crisis comes, it’s going to affect every country in the world.”

“We can’t suddenly increase our agricultural production. It’s a 10-year programme to make ourselves self-sufficient, even if they did everything the scientists wanted. It’s not like manufacturing. You can’t knock out food like you can knock out cars.”

“If a war comes, that’s the end of it,” he said ominously.

In a previous FMT report, Kota Belud MP (Umno) Abdul Rahman Dahlan said that a food crisis would hit Sabah and Sarawak harder than it would the Peninsula.

This, he said, was because 70 percent of Sabah and Sarawak’s rice had to be imported; a complete reverse from Peninsular Malaysia, where only 30 per cent of rice was imported.

Abdul Rahman also admitted that the government was not working fast enough to ensure the country could feed itself, despite raising the national rice stockpile from 92,000 to 292,000 metric tons in recent years.

The amount, he said, would feed the whole country for up to six months if a disaster were to strike.

Dear Student: I Don't Lie Awake At Night Thinking of Ways to Ruin Your Life

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2012/01/12/dear-student-i-dont-lie-awake-at-night-thinking-of-ways-to-ruin-your-life/

Art Carden, Contributor

I'm an economist interested in the ordinary business of life.

Dear Student: I Don't Lie Awake At Night Thinking of Ways to Ruin Your Life

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“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)

One of the popular myths of higher education is that professors are sadists who live to inflict psychological trauma on undergraduates. Perhaps you believe that we pick students at random and then schedule all our assignments in such a way as to make those students’ lives as difficult as possible. The older I get and the longer I do this, the more I recognize that we (the professors) need to be more transparent about our philosophies of evaluation. How does this work? Let’s clarify a few things.

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First, I do not “take off” points. You earn them. The difference is not merely rhetorical, nor is it trivial. In other words, you start with zero points and earn your way to a grade. You earn a grade in (say) Econ 100 for demonstrating that you have gained a degree of competence in economics ranging from being able to articulate the basic principles (enough to earn a C) to mastery and the ability to apply these principles to day-to-day affairs (which will earn an A). I’ve hurt my own grades before by confusing my own incompetence with competence and my own (bare) competence with mastery, so trust me: I’ve been there, and I understand.

Second, this means that the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that you have mastered the material. It is not on me to demonstrate that you have not. My assumption at the beginning of each class is that you know somewhere between nothing and very little about basic economics unless you were lucky enough to have an exceptional high school economics course. Otherwise, why are you here? You might say that the course is a prerequisite for other things you want to do, but if that it is the case and you know the material, you’re more than welcome to simply show up for the exams, ace them, and be on your way.

In this light, consider this: the fact that you “don’t understand” why you didn’t earn full points for a particular question might itself help explain why you didn’t earn full points. Don’t take this personally or interpret it as a sneer. See it as a learning opportunity. If you understood the material–and do note that there is a large difference between reallyunderstanding the material and being able to reproduce a graph or definition you might remember from class–you would have answered the question flawlessly. I recommend (as I have recommended to many others) that you go back, take another crack at it, and see if you can find where you have gone wrong. Then bring it by my office, and we will talk.

Finally, I’m here to be a mentor and instructor. This means that our relationship differs from the relationships that you have with your friends and family. Please don’t infer from this that I don’t care about you, because I do. A lot. I want to see you make good choices. I want to see you understand basic economics because I hope it will rock your world as it continues to rock mine and because the human consequences of lousy economic policy are enormous. That said, you should never take grades personally. I don’t think you’re stupid because you tank an exam, an assignment, or even an entire course. Economics is hard. A D or an F on an economics exam does not diminish your value in God’s eyes (or in mine) or indicate that economics just isn’t for you. It probably means you need to work smarter, and I’m here to help you with that.

Dear student, I once thought as you do. I once carried about the same misconceptions, the same litany of cognitive biases, and the same adolescent desire to blame others for my errors. I was (and remain) very poorly served by my immaturity. As shocking as it may seem, I still cling to a lot of it, even after four years of college, five years of graduate school, and now five-and-a-half years as a professor. Economics is hard, but becoming a responsible member of a free society is very, very, very hard. I’m still learning to put aside childish things. I hope you will do the same. Start now. The effort is daunting, but the rewards are substantial.

This article was inspired by periodic discussions of evaluation in the academy that crop up on the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education and on InsideHigherEd.com. A former colleague used to quote the verse above at the top of his Economics 101 syllabus. I thank Rachel Smith for comments and suggestions.

Kempen anti-Gardenia bukti ketegangan kaum meningkat apabila dihimpit masalah ekonomi

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/bahasa/article/kempen-anti-gardenia-bukti-ketegangan-kaum-meningkat-apabila-dihimpit-masalah-ekonomi/

Kempen anti-Gardenia bukti ketegangan kaum meningkat apabila dihimpit masalah ekonomi
Oleh Shannon Teoh January 03, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, 3 Jan — Kenaikan harga barang telah membawa kepada perubahan sikap, di mana rakyat Malaysia kini lebih cenderung untuk menyalahkan antara satu sama lain dan membangkitkan pertikaian yang bersifat perkauman.

Penganalisis memberitahu The Malaysian Insider, baru-baru ini kempen memboikot roti Gardenia ekoran tuduhan ia bersifat perkauman dan “syarikat kroni” yang mencerminkan realiti dalam negara di mana hampir ke semua aspek kehidupan dilihat berpegang kepada perkauman.

Gardenia Bakeries terpaksa mengeluarkan kenyataan minggu lalu untuk menafikan syarikat itu diarahkan oleh Padiberas Nasional Bhd (Bernas) untuk menghentikan pembelian tepung dari Federal Flour Mills Bhd (FFM) atas sebab-sebab yang dikatakan bersifat perkauman.

Keputusan itu dibuat ekoran jualan popular roti Gardenia apabila ramai rakyat berbangsa Cina memilih produk baru sebagaI satu tindak balas dalam satu kempen di laman sosial Facebook dan emel selain turut dihebahkan melalui khidmas pesanan ringkas.

Bernas dimiliki Tan Sri Syed Mohktar Al-Bukhary sementara FFM diketuai hartawan Malaysia Tan Sri Robert Kuok.

“Di Malaysia, ia akan berlaku (apabila keadaan buruk) dan rakyat mula menyalahkan bangsa lain. Sama ada aspek pendidikan, perniagaan atau hiburan. Kebanyakan orang berfikir di atas garis perkauman,” kata Ibrahim Suffian, yang mengetuai Merdeka Center.

Kempen anti-Gardenia yang diadakan di Internet terutamanya di China, bermula bulan lalu dengan meminta memboikot syarikat pengeluar roti itu kerana mendiskriminasi FFM milik Kuok atas sebab bersifat perkauman.

Kempen itu juga menggesa pengguna menyokong produk yang dihasilkan FFM, Massimo yang memasuki pasaran baru-baru ini.

Satu emel yang dihantar menyebut: “Mari menyokong roti baru Massimo oleh Robert Kuok dan boikot roti Gardenia yang dimiliki kroni Umno Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, kumpulan Tradewind.”

Rakyat Malaysia telah berdepan inflasi tinggi secara berterusan yang mencecah kadar tinggi iaitu tiga peratus pada Mac dan terus melambung kepad 3.3 peratus bulan lalu.

Ibrahim dan penganalisis politik Khoo Kay Peng menyalahkan dasar-dasar yang mana diteruskan untuk “berdasarkan kepada hak kaum daripada kewarganegaraan.”

“Ia tidak selaras untuk kami mendapatkan hak pendidikan dan ekonomi berdasarkan Akta Hubungan Kaum. Ia tidak seiring,” kata Khoo yang turut menambah ia mudah bagi pengguna untuk menjatuhkan pasaran Gardenia, yang telah menaikkan harga produk banyak kali sejak beberapa tahun kebelakangan ini.

Agus Yusoff, seorang pensyarah politik dan sejarah berkata faktor utama bagi pengguna ialah kemampuan dan harga berpatutan, dalam kes ini seolah-olah wujud satu agenda untuk “memasukkan sentiman perkauman ke dalam isu itu.”

Massimo kini menawarkan roti bersaiz kecil dan panjang berharga RM2.50 dan RM3.40 manakala Gardenia berharga RM3.20 dan RM3.35.

Putrajaya akan membentangkan Rang undang-undang Hubungan Kaum pada Mac untuk menentang perkara-perkara bersifat perkauman, mengawal interaksi antara kaum dan menggalakkan untuk saling hormat-menghormati.

Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz minggu lalu berkata undang-undang baru itu diperkenalkan untuk mencontohi Akta Hubungan Kaum yang diamalkan di Britain.

Tetapi wakil rakyat pembangkang mengatakan ia tidak akan menyelesaikan masalah sebaliknya kerajaan akan mengawal daripada memudahkan interaksi.

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