In this severe period of economic downturn and the spread of the Coronavirus, the Pahang state government has levied the most expensive and unreasonable agricultural land rent in Malaysia. Such an action is no different from robbing from the rakyat, and could even severely affect our country’s food production chain.
I will bring the voice of Cameron Highlands farmers to the State Assembly in order to debate and discuss the agricultural land lease policy and , when it is necessary, bring the matter to the court to review the unreasonable lease rate.
Earlier, the Menteri Besar of Pahang Dato’ Sri Haji Wan Rosdy announced that all Cameron agricultural land that was given “Temporary Occupation Licenses (TOL)” will be managed by Pahang Corporation. Lease will then be issued to farmers. Last week, the Cameron Highlands Land Office has officially distributed the first batch of leases to 353 Cameron Highlands farmers. The farmers in Cameron Highlands finally have the chance to look at the content of the lease.
The latest rent for Cameron Highlands agricultural land is RM 4,500 (annual rent) for 1 acre, which is a huge difference compared to the agricultural land in other districts in Pahang, namely RM 24 (annual rent) per acre for oil palm estate and RM 8 (annual rent) per acre for fruit farms. The state government earlier announced that the lease policy would not burden small farmers whose land does not exceed 10 acres. Unfortunately, it turns out that charging the annual rent of RM 4,500 is similar to robbing small farmers.
The long period of sluggish agricultural product prices, especially vegetables and flowers that are abundant in Cameron, are of short-term crops. Small farmers are hoping that the state government can formulate reasonable rents to avoid increasing production costs in the midst of hardship. The new rent is now more than 10 times the annual rate of RM 404 levied under previous TOL, thus increasing the production costs of farmers as well as preventing farmers from adopting advanced farming technologies to achieve industrial transformation and upgrading.
The state government only provides a lease that is effective for 3 + 2 years, hence Cameron Highlands’ agricultural land problem cannot be solved once and for all. As Cameron Highlands’ land is limited, its agricultural sector must be transformed from labor-intensive and small-scale production to technology-intensive, professionally managed, resource-saving, and eco-friendly sustainable production method.
Therefore, industrial transformation and upgrading are imperative and cannot be neglected. However, the short-term lease of 3 + 2 years provided by the state government cannot solve the fundamental problem. Firstly, farmers do not receive long-term protection, and secondly, financial institutions will not provide low-interest loans to farmers who own agricultural land with short-term leases.
I request the state government to provide Cameron Highlands farmers with a longer lease term. Due to the fact that land is the basic necessity in agriculture, the government must try its best to minimise external impacts on farmers. The government should also cherish and protect the land that they operate and put in adequate investment in order to determine sustainable production and management policies from the perspective of markets and effectiveness, to provide people with cheap and good-quality food, and to gain advantages within market competition.
The current global spread of coronavirus affects severely export of agricultural products such as vegetables and flowers from Cameron Highlands. The demand for domestic agricultural products and agro-tourism has also decreased, thus bringing about serious consequences to the production costs of local agriculture sector. The Pahang state government should review Cameron Highlands’ new agricultural land policy in line with the national initiatives to introduce economic relief measures.
The state government first transferred the ownership of Cameron Highlands’ agricultural land to Perbadanan Setiausaha Kerajaan, and later granting the power to manage the lans to Pahang Corporation Sdn Bhd. We could not help but wonder whether the use of power for private gain, discussions under the table and oligopoly are involves which lead to soaring rents being introduced and subsequent negative consequences to Cameron Highlands agricultural sector.
The state government should no longer act arbitrarily and must start having dialogues and discussions with Cameron Highlands farmers’ organizations as soon as possible in order to formulate together a win-win solution that can achieve sustainable development.