Malaysia: Food Security in 2021 and Beyond

By New Straits Times

The Malaysian economy in 2020 was affected by Covid-19 pandemic, and projected to contract by 4.5% while nearly 100,000 people lost jobs since the start of movement control order (MCO), according to the New Straits Times.

As for food economy, disruptions in the food chain are minimal as food supply has been adequate and markets stable. We were able to keep food supply chains alive and mitigate the pandemic’s impacts across the food supply chain system.

But, at the household level, especially the bottom B40, the impacts of the pandemic have an increasingly debilitating effect on their ability to buy healthy and affordable food, particularly households that spend up to 70% income on food.

In 2021, there is no room for complacency. At the global level, it is predicted another 135 million people could face acute food insecurity by the first half of 2021.

Frailties in the production and supply of food could be further exacerbated by the potential for weather-related shocks, millions of jobs being impacted across the agricultural value chain, resultant food price spikes and financial losses impacting on hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized local organisations that are critical to the integrity of food supply chains across the world.