More than 300 vegetable farmers in Cameron Highlands will continue to dump round cabbages in front of the Cameron Highlands Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (Fama), as a sign of protest over the commodity's low price.

Cameron Highlands Vegetable Growers Association secretary Chay Ee Mong said there was a slump in the price of round cabbages since August, incurring losses to farmers.

He said they had asked Fama and the Malaysian Farmer's Association (LLP) to reduce imports of the commodity to help farmers, but had yet to receive any feedback.

"The wholesale price of cabbage is between 30 sen and 40 sen per kilogramme, as compared to between 60 and 80, previously," he told Bernama today, adding that farmers faced production costs of 80 sen per kilogramme.

Chay said the association was unhappy that Fama had failed to monitor monthly imports of over 4,000 metric tonnes of round cabbage from China and Indonesia, causing the price of local products to fall.

Although the local production of 3,500 metric tonnes was insufficient for the market, he said excessive imports had affected commodity prices and caused losses to the farmers.

"If the situation does not change, the farmers have no choice but to throw away the cabbage," he added.

Vegetable farmers in Cameron Highlands had taken similar action previously when faced with falling prices of local products.

Sugar industry to remain under control

Meanwhile, in Parliament today, Minister of International Trade and Industry Mustapa Mohamed said the government does not intend to fully open up the sugar industry in the country.

He said such a move would cause the price of the commodity on the local market to be exposed to speculation and price fluctuation on the international market.

He added that if the import of raw sugar was not controlled by the government, it is feared that importers would not import it, due to the high price on the international market.

NONE "This will affect the supply of refined sugar on the local market and cause problems for industries using sugar as the main ingredient, including small medium industries (SMIs) while burdening the people as the end users," he said in reply to a question from Khairy Jamaluddin (BN-Rembau).

Mustapa said through the Price Control and Controlled Goods Ordinance, the maximum price of sugar was gazetted at RM1.45 per kg for the Peninsular and RM1.55 in Sabah and Sarawak from Sept 13, 2006.

"The sugar industry had asked the government to raise the retail price by 60 sen per kg from RM1.45 to RM2.05 from Jan 1. To avoid an increase, the government made the decision to implement a subsidy for sugar this year.

"This subsidy is given to those sugar refineries producing white coarse grain and fine sugar," he said.

Mustapa said there were four refineries which had been given the subsidy, namely, Malayan Sugar Manufacturing, Gula Padang Terap, Central Sugar Refinery and Kilang Gula Felda Perlis.

- Bernama