SEREMBAN: Negri Sembilan wants the Agriculture and Food Industries Ministry to put in place more effective measures to increase food production instead of accusing state governments for contributing to the high food import bill.

       Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Aminuddin Harun said the ministry should do more to facilitate food production as well as re-evaluate the effectiveness of the programmes carried out by its agencies, rather than blame state governments for not providing more land for food production.

       Citing an example, he said the state government had allocated thousands of acres of land in Jelebu to the ministry for food production, but this has not been fully utilised.

       The state government, he added, also allocated thousands of acres for a cattle-breeding project in Gemas several years ago, but that, too, didn’t take off.

       “The ministry needs to find out why some farming and aquaculture areas have remained idle and what were the real problems faced by farmers and fishermen.

       “What has it done to check the increasing prices of fertiliser, pesticide and seeds, which is probably a contributing factor to this?” he said.

       The Federal Government had in December 2007 signed a loan agreement totalling RM250mil with the National Feedlot Corporation to finance the establishment and operations of the centre as part of its policy to develop and increase beef production.

       Aminuddin was responding to a ministry statement that the state government’s failure to provide new areas for food production led to a RM63.6bil food import bill last year.

       The ministry told a Malay daily that state governments seemed to be more interested in property development projects as these were more profitable and that some farmers who did not own land also faced problems applying for temporary occupational licences.

       Aminuddin said the ministry should instead reveal how its programmes have helped to produce successful farmers and increase food production as well as its response time to providing assistance to farmers.

       He said on its part, the state government will continue to assist them to help boost food production.

       Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor said the state had more than enough land for agricultural development.

       He said Sabah’s agriculture industry was not even close to being developed on the scale that the government hoped it would.

       “Even if some of our land area was used for property developments, there will still be more than enough for other purposes.”