How agriculture helps in the development of Malaysia’s Economy? - Kavinmullai Naguchete

Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals and plants to provide food, fiber, medicinal plant, sand other products to sustain and enhance life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. China has the largest agricultural output of any country. 

Agriculture plays a vital role in a country’s economic growth. It has already made a significant contribution to the economic prosperity of advanced countries and its role in the economic development of less developed countries is of vital importance. In other words, where per capita real income is low, emphasis is being laid on agriculture and other primary industries. 

The history of England is clear evidence that Agricultural Revolution preceded the Industrial Revolution there. In U.S.A. and Japan, also agricultural development has helped to a greater extent in the process of their industrialization. Similarly, various under-developed countries of the world engaged in the process of economic development have by now learnt the limitations of putting over-emphasis on industrialization as a means to attain higher per capita real income. Thus industrial and agricultural developments are not alternatives but are complementary and are mutually supporting with respect to both inputs and outputs. 

It is seen that increased agricultural output and productivity tend to contribute substantially to an overall economic development of the country, it will be rational and appropriate to place greater emphasis on further development of the agricultural sector.

Agriculture in Malaysia makes up twelve percent of the nation's GDP. Sixteen percent of the population of Malaysia is employed through some sort of agriculture. Large-scale plantations were established by the British. These plantations opened opportunity for new crops such as rubber (1876), palm oil (1917), and cocoa (1950). A number of crops are grown for domestic purpose such as bananas, coconuts, durian, pineapples, rice and rambutan. According to the latest official data from 2015, palm oil made up 46.9 per cent of agriculture’s contribution to GDP, followed by other (17.7 per cent), livestock (10.7 per cent), fishing (10.7 per cent), rubber (7.2 per cent) and forestry and logging (6.9 per cent). 

And when it comes to palm oil, palm oil production is vital for the economy of Malaysia, which is the world’s second-largest producer of the commodity after Indonesia. The country's palm oil industry produces about 90 million tone of lignocellulosic biomass, including empty fruit bunches, oil palm trunks, and oil palm fronds, as well as palm oil mill effluent (POME). In 2010, in response to concerns about social and environmental impact of palm oil, the Malaysian Government pledged to limit palm oil plantation expansion by retaining at least half of the nation's land as forest cover. The first commercial palm oil cultivation was done in Selangor in 1917 at Tennamaran Estate. In the early stage of development, the government focused on increasing its palm oil output by rapidly increasing the land area for the palm oil cultivation.