Climate change disrupts rice production, threatens country’s food security

SHAH ALAM - The impact of climate change in Malaysia can have a worrying effect on the country’s food security in the future.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Climate Change Institute Research (IPI) fellow Dr Siti Norliyana Harun said that compared to some countries faced with subsided rivers, Malaysia experienced the opposite with the rise of the sea level and changed with uncertain weather.

She said the uncertainty of the weather could cause a disturbance to the production of food, especially in the staple food industry which are the paddies.

“Malaysia is a country that has a uniform temperature, high humidity and high volume of rain every year.

“The annual rainfall in Malaysia is between 2,000 millimeter (mm) and 2,500mm. For example, the heavy rains during the second planting season in July throughout the north of Selangor caused a few areas of the paddy field to be submerged.

“This incident will ruin the paddy seeds and causes the growth of the paddy to be stunted.

“Other than that, the uncertain weather change could cause the presence of pests and new diseases towards the paddies.

“The incident will disturb the production of the country’s paddies,” she told Sinar Harian.

Norliyana explained the uncertain weather had caused floods in a few new areas that never experienced any floods in Klang Valley.

She said climate change could happen through natural factors and through human activities.

“Activities such as land explorations for example in addition to development, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions are among factors that contribute to climate change.

“So I think there is a need for a more aggressive effort to reduce global warming to be applied by all parties in the country.

“The effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that could become the future cause of global warming must be instilled by all parties in the country,” she said.

Noorliyana too advised the obligatory parties to work together to prepare sustainable development and preparations for natural disasters especially from an infrastructure standpoint and methods to adapt to the changes in the weather.

She said the government needed to prepare to face natural disasters such as floods so the damages from these disasters could be reduced in addition to spending a considerable amount of money to prevent it, rather than bear a large burden to cover the recovery funds.

Meanwhile, significant climate change in the country impacted the nation’s food security especially in the agricultural and seafood sector being affected.

Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Food Security Expert Professor Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor Juraimi said the situation was caused by high rainfall and floods which destroyed river plants and harvests.

He said the issue could lead to certain crops such as paddies, fruits and vegetables being fully ruined.

“We know the country is famous for its high humidity and rain however, that is a simple cause for diseases to infect especially for plants such as chilies.

“So with the viral infection, bacteria and such will cause damage to plants.

“This is to some extent would compromise the production of our agricultural sector,” he told Sinar Harian.

Shukor said river fishery sector would also be affected if the rain continues, leading to erosion and debris from hills and mountains.

“This could destroy and contaminate the river as well as bring problems to life in the river itself.

“It also gave an effect towards the fish livestock activities in cages,” he said.

He added the impact of climate change brought difficulties to fishermen to go out to sea due to its rough state.

“If water levels rise, it will affect the fish livestock near the river estuary causing the salt water to mix with the river water,” Shukor explained.