Fatimah Mohamed Arshad said the government should instead focus on improving the production capacity of the local livestock industry through research and the adoption of advanced production technology.
She said Vietnam had taken a similar approach, conducting research and leveraging foreign expertise, particularly from Israel. As a result, Vietnam became the eighth largest global animal feed producer in 2022, generating 26.72 million metric tonnes and reflecting a 27.72% year-on-year growth.
“Singapore is just a tiny island with minimal space for plantation or grazing. Hence, they have to look elsewhere for an alternative,” Fatimah, of Universiti Putra Malaysia, told FMT.
Mohamad had said in a Nov 29 interview with Malaysiakini that he was mulling Singapore’s strategy of investing abroad to guarantee domestic food security.
Mohamad said the production cost of corn, the prevalent livestock feed in Malaysia, was high, and argued that reverse investment could reduce the government’s spending on livestock feed production.
However, Fatimah said that the short-term benefits of reverse investment would be offset by long-term losses from the “slow death of the domestic livestock industry”.
Adding that this might take years to revive, she said it would also lead to the loss of jobs.
She said reverse investment in developing countries could be risky and problematic due to the complexity of regulations, exchange rate fluctuations, and poor protection of investors.
Malaysia’s beef self-sufficiency level is currently at 30%, meaning that the remaining 70% of local demand is produced outside of the country.
Fatimah said that to address the high cost of livestock feed production, the remaining 70% of the meat requirement could be met through imports, a cheaper option than reverse investment.
She also said the government had spent imprudently in the past and neglected its research discipline, citing as an example the papaya project by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, initiated in 1987.
In 2003, a disease outbreak occurred and the project failed due to a lack of extensive research in diagnosing and addressing the disease.
“Having significant capital alone is not enough. It is a systemic issue where our food sector has been neglected for years,” Fatimah said.