Dr Rundi (third right) and joined by other officials taking a closer look at the padi species.
KUCHING (June 21): Implementing agencies and authorities have to fix the ‘jigsaw puzzles’ besieging Sarawak’s padi industry for the state to be recognised as ‘jelapang padi’ or rice bowl of Malaysia, Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom.
The Minister of Food Industry Commodity and Regional Development cited the ‘jigsaw puzzles’ as challenges compounded by the relevant agencies and authorities working in silos, instead of a concerted effort.
The agencies and authorities ought not to work individually but rather as one, otherwise potential investors would gradually lose interest in helping Sarawak to develop its padi industry, he said.
He was speaking during a working visit to the padi field at Stumbin, Sri Aman near here today.
According to him, the Stumbin padi field in Sri Aman is still not big enough to be called a rice bowl as the padi field has not seen much expected growth since 2011.
“For it to get the rice bowl status complete with cost-effective mechanisation mode, a padi field needs to cover at least 5,000 hectares,” he stressed.
At the moment the rice self-sufficiency level (SSL) in the state is still around 30 per cent and only when it reaches around 60 per cent, then only can the state rice SSL be considered satisfactory, he explained.
Dr Rundi further highlighted the needs to identify land suitable for padi planting and irrigation and for this, he called upon the Land and Survey Department, Agriculture Department as well as the Drainage and Irrigation Department to work closely to resolve these pertinent issues.
The minister also stressed that related issues like seedlings, yields, feasibility study and land encumbrances must be addressed and resolved by the relevant agencies and investors before the decision makers like his ministry comes in.
For that, he said the Sarawak government had recently approved the setting up of a statutory board for padi planting and rice production.