PUTRAJAYA ,Wednesday, October 31, 2001 (The Star) - Prime Minister DatukSeri Dr Mahathir Mohamad urged huge plantation companies to contributetowards increasing food production by integrating cattle rearing on theirland and varying their activities to include food commodities.The move, he said, would help reduce the country’s dependence on importedfood besides opening a new avenue for them to break away from thetraditional commodity of palm oil which was too susceptible to pricefluctuations.Agriculture Minister Datuk Effendi Norwawi said Dr Mahathir made the callwhen chairing the second meeting of the co-ordination council for thepublic and private sector in the agriculture sector.Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Effendi said the total acreage ofoil palm estates in the country stood at almost four million hectares andthey could easily support the rearing of at least a million head ofcattle.At the moment there are only about 100,000 head of cattle being reared insuch estates.Effendi said Malaysia had the potential of not only being self-sufficientin food but could also be a major food producer, provided there was aco-ordinated effort involving all related parties.“The main detriment to this is the scarcity of land. All mentris besarhave agreed to allocate land for agriculture, but the problem is that thespace is just not enough because most of the land have been taken up forhousing and township development projects.“That is why we need the co-operation of large plantation companies torealise this potential because they already have large tracts of landsuitable for mixed or integrated agricultural activities,” he said.He said large estates have the requirements to become large-scale foodproducers as they already have the land, sound human resource andfinancial management and good track records in research and development.“At the moment, our self-sufficiency in food production is only about 23%.If we do not consider large-scale production, the best we can hope toachieve within 10 years is to be 28% self-sufficient.“The ministry will be reorganised so as to be more investor-friendly toencourage more active participation of the private sector in theagriculture industry and to provide a strong support especially in newtechnology, marketing, funding and R & D.”