KINIBIZ Far more can be done than just throwing money at the problem of rising food prices. And the solution is far simpler than what the authorities may think.

In a news report in The Star last Saturday, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak ( right ) announced an allocation of – wait for it – RM20 million for a special programme to curb the rising cost of seafood and vegetables.

The Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama) and the National Fishermen’s Association (Nekmat) have each been tasked with creating a stockpile of vegetables and seafood respectively.

Details were scant - naturally - as all hare-brained schemes typically go.

From what little information on the stockpiling programme that is available, Tiger understands that the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Ismail Sabri Yaakob will personally oversee the gradual release of stale vegetables from the stockpile, such as cabbages, red chillies, onions, coconut, ginger and potatoes so as to ensure that supply and consequently price remains stable.

Not to forget the varied varieties of fish to be stockpiled under the scheme such as cencaru, kembong, selar, tongkol and kerisi . For readers unfamiliar with the Malay names of commonly consumed fish in Malaysia, the first three named are from the mackerel family, while tongkol is skipjack tuna.

The obvious challenge here is the difficulty of stockpiling perishables.

For the complete article go to go to KiniBiz .

This article was written by Chan Quan Min.