Vegetable Prices Increasing

The local Malaysia news daily reported that the price of vegetables would increase by at least 30% due to low supply caused by the erratic weather and lack of workers.

Cameron Highlands Vegetable Growers Association secretary Chay Ee Mong was quoted by the daily as saying that the supply of beans, tomatoes and chillies would be affected.

He claimed that farmers were reluctant to plant vegetables as they were facing difficulties getting workers.

Some 80% of the vegetables planted in Cameron Highlands is for local consumption while the rest are exported to Singapore.


Prices soaring due to shortage of workers, claim farmers
By Foong Thim Leng
Monday June 7, 2010

CAMERON HIGHLANDS: Prices of vegetables have almost doubled since April partly due to a dearth of manpower, farmers here claimed.

Cameron Highlands Vegetable Farmers Association secretary Chay Ee Mong said the shortage of foreign workers had reached a critical stage, causing a steep hike in the cost of greens.

Vegetable prices from the highlands had increased between 50% and 100% since April, he added.


Good help: Chong (right) and his foreign workers harvesting brocolli in Brinchang.

Citing examples, Chay said English cabbage had gone up by 40 sen to RM1.60 per kilo, leafy mustard (sawi) price doubled to RM4, French beans (from RM2.50 to RM4), dwarf white mustard or siew pak choy (from RM1.50 to RM4), and tomato (from RM1 to RM1.50).

Vegetable farmers here are appealing to the Government to review a regulation on reducing the number of foreign workers from 2.5 million to 1.8 million.

They also want the Government to lift the ban on workers from Bangladesh.

Chay said the price hike was also a result of a reduction of imported vegetables due to natural disasters in countries like China.

Cameron Highlands produces 550 tonnes of vegetables daily, of which 80% is for the local market and the rest exported to Singapore.

Chay said many farmers were forced to operate with a skeleton crew and also work additional hours to meet demand because they had difficulties in hiring foreign workers.

"We hope the Government will approve the entry of 5,000 foreign workers, especially Bangladeshis, for farms here," he said yesterday.

The freeze on hiring Bangladeshi workers was re-introduced by the Home Ministry in October 2007 in view of the "scandals" surrounding their intake.

Chay said farmers preferred Bangladeshi workers because they were reliable, hard working and were prepared to work for more than five years.

He said only 10% of workers in Cameron Highlands were locals, comprising mainly orang asli.

A Brinchang farmer, Chong Sek Chuang, 47, said it took farmers about a year or two to train a new foreign worker.

By not extending their permits, he said Malaysia would become a training ground for workers.

"They can easily seek higher pay as skilled workers elsewhere," he said.

"We will lose whatever competitive advantage we have." -- The Star