March 7, 2025
KUALA LUMPUR – The government will import 640 tonnes of coconuts from Indonesia, Sabah and Sarawak for Peninsular Malaysia every month during the festive season as a stop-gap measure to meet demand.
Agriculture and Food Security Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu said the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama) would carry out the short-term measure.
As of Tuesday (March 4), the Fama has imported 734 tonnes of coconuts from Sabah and Indonesia valued at RM1.615mil.
These were distributed to 42 operation centres through 509 outlets.
A portion of the supply was also distributed to 16 wholesalers and 202 coconut milk businesses.
“This measure was taken to help stabilise the price and ensure continuous supply for the coconut milk and other coconut-based industries,” he said.
Mohamad said there were a few factors behind the hike in prices of coconut-based products, especially coconut milk.
Among them were price increases of mature or ‘hard’ coconuts from Indonesia as the republic also exports to China.
“Imported coconuts from Indonesia, priced at RM1.10 each, rose to RM1.80 around October and November 2024 and rose further to RM2.20 today.
“As of now, 98% of our imported coconuts are from Indonesia,” he said during Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday (March 6).
Additionally, the weather and local farmers gravitating towards young coconuts, which fetch higher prices, also led to the shortage of mature coconuts.
“The country’s coconut production increased from 536 million coconuts to 623 million in 2023. However, this was not enough to meet the country’s demand for 1.3 billion coconuts a year or 108 million coconuts a month,” he said.
As for medium-term intervention, Mohamad said several initiatives have been conducted under the Coconut Industry Development Programme 2021-2025, including replanting activities and rehabilitation of coconut plants.
“Farmers are also given aid in the form of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, insecticide as well as basic infrastructure such as farms, land, drainage and tools for plantations,” he said.
The ministry will continue to encourage farmers to plant a variety of high-quality variants such as Matag, Malayan Red Dwarf, Malayan Yellow Dwarf and Pandan,” he said, adding that this is part of the long-term intervention.
The ministry has allocated RM15mil for the development of the coconut industry for 943 farmers with a replanting area of 1,890.7ha and land for farm rehabilitation covering an area of 285ha.
A total of 1.2 million high-quality coconut seeds have also been produced for the coconut development project, he said.
“With these measures in place, the ministry believes the price hike for coconut-based products, especially coconut milk can be controlled and improved in the long term through domestic production,” he said.
He was responding to a question from Rodziah Ismail (PH-Ampang) on the short-term, medium-term, and long-term measures taken to tackle the price hike of coconut-based products, especially those containing coconut milk.