SERDANG: The Kemubu Agricultural Development Authority (Kada) in Kelantan and Muda Agricultural Development Authority (Mada) in Kedah have started implementing the paddy land consolidation policy to realise the government’s desire to introduce large-scale rice farming.
Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Salahuddin Ayub said the two authorities have started to draw up the action plan for the implementation which, among others, focuses on increasing the national paddy output to achieve the self-sufficiency level (SSL).
“The modernisation of the paddy sector must be in line with the latest developments as most farmers only own one or two hectares of land,” he said at a media conference in conjunction with the launch of the National Paddy Farmers Conference 2019 here today.
Therefore, he said, through several land consolidation schemes, the agricultural land would be expanded to between 10 and 50ha for the privately-owned land.
“If there are any interested private companies, we can open up land as large as 100ha to 1,000ha to be worked on,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said the current yield of paddy fields only averaged around four to five metric tonnes per hectare per season and this will not help farmers emerge from the B40 (bottom 40% by household income) group.
Therefore, he said, the new paddy varieties, RC2 and RC8 developed by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and PadiU Putra developed by Universiti Putra Malaysia, which have proven to yield around eight to 14 metric tonnes per hectare are expected to increase the total paddy yield of the country.
“This proves that we can not only increase the national SSL from the current 70% to 75% in five years but, more importantly, boost the farmers’ income,” he said. — Bernama
