Prices of Green Hit Sky High

The citizens of Malaysia are facing hardships from high petrol prices, ridiculous taxes on automobiles, cigarettes, alcohol and etc. but it’s still not a big issue as people can still survive without all these goods. It becomes worst when a necessity becomes a factor, something human beings need every day to live on. According to an article I have read online at Asia One News, vegetable prices are starting to be of concern. Vegetables such as spinach and spring onions used to cost between rm4.00 to rm5.00per Kg , now they have increased to rm5.50 to rm6.50 per Kg. Traders which previously paid around RM 4 to RM 6 per Kg for Kailan are now panicking over the ridiculous increase to RM12 per Kg. It is believed that the prices will continue to soar and it’s going to bring misfortune to those of low and medium income groups which will have to pay more on food.

                There’s quite a few reasons that has led to the increase of vegetable prices, one of it is the failure of vegetable producers to meet the demand of consumers. Why have crops decreased in such a drastic number would be because of the unpredictable weather Malaysia is facing throughout the recent months and this has largely affected the growth of vegetables. A survey held at two wet markets, Stutong Community Market and Petanak Central Market identified that a large number of traders were troubled by the supply factor in view of the rainy season. For example would be tomatoes and cabbages, tomato trees produce very less fruit if it is exposed to too much rain water while cabbages are easily spoiled. This happens because most of the farmers in Malaysia still practice very traditional ways of agriculture where their crops are mostly out in the open without any roofing to avoid rain. These farmers would face huge losses while those farmers with well equipped land will prosper with the high prices. In this case, producers who face major losses because of low production are forced to find alternatives such as growing flowers (chrysanthemums) instead of vegetables, while some venture into tourism which is seen being done in Cameron Highlands where farmers convert their farms into tourist traps, selling their produce directly to tourist instead of shipping it to wholesalers. This will further increase vegetable prices and soon it will attract farmers who intend to take advantage of this opportunity by growing vegetables. Thus supply of vegetables might increase in the future pushing prices back to equilibrium. Flash floods were also one of the reasons vegetable produce is so low. Because of heavy rain, farms and plantations were flooded causing much destruction to crops. “With the rain and floods happening since December, it is hard for us to get supplies and the price had tripled,” said Chai who had been trading for more than 20 years.

                To make matters worse, farmers are not able to produce enough supplies because of labourer shortage. “The prices of fruit and vegetable will continue to soar because farms will not be able to produce enough crops due to the shortage of workers” This severe shortage of labourers happened due to the 6P foreign worker registration programme. A big increase of demand for workers occurred and farmers were seen competing over the workers still available such as attracting workers from other farms by offering higher pay. Such disloyalty of workers made a lot of farms to go out of business, decreasing vegetable supplies even more. The programme affected farms a lot because foreigners were the only working force available to farmers. Locals have no interest in working for farms because of low pay and the job is tiring. Many farmers were forced to operate with a skeleton crew and also working additional hours to meet demand because they had a hard time hiring forgein workers. It is because of the programme, many registered foreign workers are also opting for higher salaried jobs in the city. This problem has also led to more and more farmers to change from agriculture to tourism, where we see more and more stalls and hotels being built in Cameron Highlands instead of people growing crops. Federation of Malaysian Vegetable Growers secretary-general Chay Ee Mong warned  that if the problem of labour shortage was not resolved, farms would not be able to produce enough crops to meet population demands. Vegetable prices have increased also due to the decrease of imports from other countries such as China because of natural disasters.

                If prices continue to rise, consumers will find it hard to purchase food. Consumers might seek for alternatives such as mainly consuming meat or bread which will cause health of consumers to decrease. Even prices of dishes at restaurants would increase putting more burden on city dwellers who mostly dine outside. Sherson Lian, 26, a chef at a resort in Malacca, confirmed that if prices cease to decrease, they would have no other choice but to increase their rates. Furthermore, with the population increasing every day, such low supplies might not even be enough, causing scarcity of food which will lead to famine issues among the low income group. Consumer’s buying power will also be affected, restricting them to spend more on other necessities which in turn affect other businesses. However, it is believed that prices will go back to normal when weather is much better , and producers are able to supply according to the demand. Philip Chin, a trader at Petanak Central Market said the price hike is expected to end after the Chinese New Year. But farmers are still urging the government to lift the ban on workers from Bangladesh and to review a regulation on reducing the number of foreign workers from 2.5 million to 1.8 million. Without enough workers, producers are still finding it hard to achieve the demand of consumers.


                                                                                                                 By: Jonathan Chong