KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 700,000 acres of land will be allocated for local smallholders via contract farming mechanism to plant Brazilian Guarana crop nationwide over the next five to 10 years.
Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) chairman Tan Sri Dr. Kamal Salih expects 500 tonnes of Guarana seeds will be planted via the program by local smallholders.
“Guarana is a versatile and sustainable crop for Malaysia. It is not a seasonal crop but rather all-year crop.
“We believe the crop can help support our agriculture and plantation sectors, and most importantly, solve poverty among the B40, thus transforming our local economy,” he said at a press conference after launching the Guarana Project National Cash Crop here today.
Kamal said Guarana is a high-yield crop as it can contribute about RM60,000 income per tonne compared to RM2,600 for palm oil per tonne and rubber at RM6,000 per tonne.
MIER would also push the project forward and lobby the government to get policy and regulations in terms of approved permit on the importation of Guarana seeds.
“We have funding for this project. Commercial banks are also interested to finance it. We need to mobilise investors and promote this crop to local farmers,” he added.
Kamal expects the Guarana crop to contribute about five per cent to Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 10 years.
“We expect Guarana crop to be the prime-mover for the country’s agricultural sector. We also estimate Guarana to contribute about RM84 billion to Malaysia’s GDP within 10 years and to be the second largest producer of Guarana after Brazil.
"The Guarana project under the National Cash Crop initiative would also support vision 2030," he said.
Kamal was hopeful the government would recognise Guarana as the country’s third crop after oil palm and rubber, adding that domestic palm oil outlook has been impacted by higher tariff imposition from India and the European Union’s constant lobby of negative remarks about the vegetable oil.
Kamal said MIER is keen to turnaround the country’s agricultural productivity with this new crop while creating high value farming to increase the productivity for downstream and upstream processes through utilisation of new technology.
"We can get labour from neighbouring countries. We also can mechanise the harvesting," he said.