As the second phase of Movement Control Order (MCO) takes effect from April 1 to April 14, I urge the government to be concerned about MCO’s impacts on our food production and supply chain that have led to unstable food supply and price hike.
Easing restrictions of operating hours for food production sector will give the space for vegetable vendors to operate at night while the food supply chain can return to normal in order to prevent food crisis.
Some of the measures announced and imposed during the MCO period, being inconsistent with how real market and supply chain works, impacted on the supply of vegetables as well as food supply chain.
Before MCO was imposed, vegetable vendors in Cameron Highlands will start packaging vegetables at night. Vegetable transport trucks will transport vegetables to various wholesale markets in the middle of the night so that consumers will be able to purchase fresh vegetables early in the morning at markets. Now, vegetable vendors are only allowed to operate from 7 am to 7pm, thus affecting the whole production chain.
As vegetable production and supply as well as logistics chain are in disarray due to various measures imposed during MCO, vegetable supply in the market has been unstable while food price is increasing. This also severely affects the underprivileged groups as they can hardly afford expensive vegetables.
Cameron Highlands’ vegetable vendors now have to package vegetables in the daytime and in hot weather. Vegetables that are packaged are then left overnight and can only be transported the next morning. Some vegetables that are not packaged due to limited operating hours can only be packaged the next morning.
Once vegetables are delivered to wholesale markets, another half of a day is spent to deliver the products to vegetable retailers. It is only until the third morning that these vegetables can be sold at various retail markets.
Under such circumstances, retailers would understandably cut order quantities and reduce stockpiles as the longer vegetables are kept, the more difficult vegetables can be sold. As stockpiles decline, prices will naturally climb and consumers will have to pay more to purchase vegetables.
We understand the government’s intention of restricting movement during MCO, which is to contain and control the spread of coronavirus.
However, it is also imperative to ensure the continuous and stable operations of food production as well as the supply chain ecosystem in order to prevent inflation from intensifying.
I therefore call upon the government to ease the restrictions of operating hours for vegetable vendors during the second phase of MCO in order to prevent the next repercussions from severely impacting on the market of food and essential items.