COMMERCIAL PADDY PLANTING PREPARATION FOR FOOD CRISIS - M'SIAN PM

BAGAN SERAI (Malaysia), Feb 5 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi said the commercial paddy planting which will ensure national food supply
is the country's preparatory measure in facing world food crisis, if it happens.

He said through the method, the country's self-sustenance level which
presently around 70 percent would increase and the country would no longer need
to import rice from overseas.

He said it was also in line with the National Food Supply Security Policy
which was created after the world rice supply crisis last year.

"It is better we make early perparations to have an enough food for the
people policy," he said when launching the paddy plantation model of Sime Darby
Plantation in Gedong in this northern district Thursday.

Besides raising the national rice supply, the prime minister said
large-scale paddy planting opens room for innovative efforts to produce other
rice-based products such as cooking oil, fertiliser and paper.

"From pounded paddy husks we can also produce vitamin E," he said.

Abdullah said with the increase in padi production, presently around three
and four metric tonnes perhectare, it was not impossible that the country would
be able to export rice overseas.

He said the country has wide padi fields but most were not managed
systematically and abandoned.

"That is why many padi fields become fallow. It is a waste which was not
supposed to happen," he said and called for abandoned paddy fields to be worked
on collectively to produce crops.

The launch of Sime Darby Plantation's paddy plantation model Thursday is
part of the company's efforts under the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER)
to enhance the country's paddy production to the self-sustenance level of 90
percent by 2010, besides expanding the company's food business.

About 200 hectares of oil palm land have been turned into the paddy
plantation model with the objective of enhancing padi production through
widespread mechanisation application, use of qualify agriculture materials and
solid water management system.

The RM12.5 million (US$3.4 million) plantation model uses technologies and
expertise from the Chinese National Rice Research Institute (CNRRI). The
cooperation between Sime Darby and the institute began in July 2007.

The prime minister also witnessed the signing of an agreement between Sime
Darby and CNRRI and spent half-an-hour visiting the padi plantation model.

Under the NCER (a massive infratstructure project) initiative, 933,000
hectare of land will be developed as agriculture land.
-- BERNAMA