With increasing prices of daily necessities locally and globally, the era of cheap food may soon become history.
Such price hikes are inevitable due to rising oil prices and the weakening of ringgit against the dollar for international trade, compounded by post-pandemic inflation attributed to geopolitical factors.
Malaysians are still blessed with a low inflation rate of below three per cent compared with the United States' more than eight per cent and other less-fortunate countries like Venezuela (1,198 per cent) and Sudan (340 per cent), whose rates are far above the global average of 7.4 per cent based on the world population review in January this year.
Inflation of around two per cent indicates a good growing economy. Excessive inflation happens when prices rise faster than wages, causing the currency of a country to lose value. This causes the purchasing power of the currency to drop.
The three inflation indexes are the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Wholesale Price Index and the Producer Price Index.
The one that consumers can relate to is the CPI, which is based on the average prices of primary needs such as transport, food and medical care — all at the retail level.
Currently, food inflation is on the rise due to the cost-push inflation with the rise in production and logistical costs, alongside the year-on-year four per cent increase in food demand.
This is the major contributor to Malaysia's annual CPI rise from 122.9 to 125.6 in March this year. The most effective way to fight inflation is to buy less until supplies are able to meet demand. Panic-buying, however, worsens the situation.
A reduction in exports could help to secure supplies in the short term. Cutting down on food consumption can be challenging during the festive seasons, but everyone must practise moderation in order to prevent food waste.
Choosing local produce over imported food not only saves money on a budget, but also helps local businesses.
Poultry farmers are affected by increasing prices of imported animal feed, diseases and labour shortage. The government needs to help the farmers by regulating meat prices, rationing to prevent market monopoly and ensuring accessibility.
Furthermore, the promotion of feedstock from food waste and insects such as soldier flies can reduce reliance on imports and spur a circular economy.
In short, it's time for us to shift to more environment-friendly dietary habits, that is, less meat and dairy intake.
Meat can be replaced by sustainable plant-based products, which have equivalent taste, texture and nutritional values. As a long-term goal to tackle climate change, such food industries should be supported by government initiatives such as tax incentives for domestic start-ups or foreign investors.
On the other hand, we should all help to secure self-sufficiency by growing vegetables or herbs at home, be it in rural or urban areas. Vertical farming in the cities offers great potential to reduce farm-to-fork carbon footprint.
With the rise in food prices, we need to advocate affordable nutritious food via awareness campaigns for a healthy and balanced diet.
We should support the efforts by non-governmental organisations in providing a social safety net for those in poverty to prevent starvation and malnutrition.
We need to diversify our sources and types of food since Malaysia is highly dependent on staple food imports at the expense of commodity crop plantations.
According to the World Bank, arable land in Malaysia was on a downward trend by 2.5 per cent in 2018, meaning that we must produce more food with less agricultural land.
More synergistic efforts across ministries, agencies and stakeholders are needed to increase local food production to achieve self-sufficiency.
This is in line with the National Food Security Policy 2021-2025. A long-term action plan is also needed to bring stability to the agro-food industry and supply system.
Food security should be the nation's top priority for sustainable development.
We need to be prepared for more increases in food prices as we cannot rely on government subsidies forever.
To achieve a self-sustaining economy, we must not neglect agriculture and fisheries. We need a new generation of competent agropreneurs with knowledge in automation technology to accelerate such a food revolution.
Let's make the agroindustry sexy again through attractive stimulus packages and land allocation for food farming.
The author is an associate professor at Institute of Systems Biology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times