COMMENT Malaysia’s economic policies have focused on growth, not on ensuring a just society.

Rural and Regional Development Minister Shafie Apdal has only referred to the 1997 financial crisis but not to the recent high prices of food items, such as the food crisis of 2007-08, which pushed 100 million people around the world into poverty.

That crisis revealed serious problems in the global food system and impacted the Asia Pacific region as well. Malaysia went  into a panic mode when its food supply was disrupted following Vietnam’s export restrictions on rice.

The government needs to do some soul-searching. The rising costs of essential goods and services need to be addressed through a democratic process and policies that reflect justice.

The focus on economic growth must shift to equitable social development. Economic growth that lowers the quality of life, destroys the environment and takes away the land of indigenous communities is unjust.

Policy interventions urgently needed

In policy developments, politicians and bureaucrats must ensure a democratic process is a democratic process that takes into account the concerns and views of communities as well as that of the citizens.

A democratic process will ensure the observance of distributive and procedural justice.

For example, the Bakun Hydropower Project, which promised economic development for Sarawak, has resulted in the loss of the lands of the indigenous peoples, ecological resources and the quality of life of the relocated indigenous communities.

Bakun has given some painful lessons to all of us in understanding the importance of genuine democratic space and genuine consultations with communities affected by mega-projects before the government’s decision to develop the Bakun Hydropower Project.

Malaysia requires a suite of interventionist policies to achieve the goals of social equity, justice  and sustainability. Progressive policy makers are emphasising a new nexus-oriented approach.

In relation to policies related to food, energy and water, a nexus approach is urgently needed to address unsustainable patterns of growth and rapid depletion of  natural resources.  

The nexus approach helps policymakers to understand better the inter-linkages among the food, water and energy sectors. The impact of trade and investment policies on food, water and energy will be examined in the nexus approach to policy development.

Land use policies must be reviewed

The loss of land and forests have largely been due to oil palm expansion and rapid urbanisation  in the peninsula. The timber extractions for oil palm plantations in Sabah and Sarawak have led to the loss of vast areas of rainforests as well as arable land for the indigenous communities.

Large scale mono-crop plantations have been destroying forests, indigenous knowledge of biodiversity, edible plant species, medicinal plants and sustainable agricultural practices.

Are there land grabs in Malaysia? To safeguard national food security, investments in agricultural and forest lands have increased significantly worldwide. This phenomenon is known as land grabbing.

 

As states in Malaysia have their own land enactments and control over land, how can Malaysia safeguard its lands and forests (whatever is left) from land grabbers without any transparency in land use policies?

A sustainable agriculture policy

Many case studies from Asia, Africa and Latin America show that sustainable low-input agriculture is possible with productive outputs.

For example, a new technique known as System of Rice Intensification (SRI), developed in Madagascar by an agronomist priest Henri de Laudanie, was evaluated by Cornell University in the United States and has been adopted in China, Bangladesh and Indonesia. SRI  does not require rice plants (padi) to be permanently submerged in water.

 

Rice is our staple food and self-sufficiency in rice will ensure our food security.

Ecology is far more important than economic growth and thinking policy makers agree on this. Sustainable consumption patterns contribute to the protection of a nation’s natural resources.

Millions of tonnes of garbage that Malaysian consumers generate every day is an indication of our unsustainable consumption patterns.

If we do not wish for incinerators to dot our landscape, we will need a National Policy on Sustainable Consumption to cover the roles of the industries, consumers, local authorities and decision makers in ensuring that our consumption patterns do not contribute to ecological destruction.

Minister Shafie Apdal, who says there are enough brains to resolve the crisis of increasing prices, needs to show how he is addressing rural poverty.

Infrastructure in the rural areas of East Malaysia are still Third World. What bedevils the implementation of poverty alleviation in rural Malaysia? The vote bank of the rural populations?

Yesterday: On price hikes, policies to promote justice needed

JOSIE FERNANDEZ is a researcher, social activist and Asian Public Intellectual Fellow.