YES, even far greater than Muhammad Ali. The recent rice drama in Malaysia, had many people demanding we learn from the Thailand and Indonesian experience. READ : Mengapa Malaysia jarang terdapat sawah padi seperti yang ada di Indonesia dan Thailand?
SO let's look at it , pound for pound, Malaysia versus Thailand when it comes to paddy, who comes out tops and I will tell you, from whom we should be learning from instead.
BASED on 2021 figures, VIEW : Malaysia's paddy rice yield stood at 37,452 hg per ha, while Thailand's yield stood at VIEW : 29,867 hg per ha.
SO how come the Thai's are self sufficient, can even export rice to other countries but Malaysia is left holding the beggars bowl trying to get enough rice to feed us all?
ELEMENTARY , my dear reader. VIEW : In 2021, the total planted areas for paddy field in Malaysia was approximately 647.9 thousand hectares, while in Thailand READ : they have more than 11 million ha of land planted with paddy
NOW, Malaysia has about READ : some 160,000 abandoned paddy land, and so we can very easily reach 100 per cent self sufficiency if we stop banging our heads on restructuring every single aspect of the paddy chain from farmer to consumer, by merely making it commercially viable purely on demand and supply economics for the private sector to pump money into farming paddy.
AND who should we be learning from? Meet VIETNAM, which READ : According to the IMF in five years time will be in the top 20 list of the worlds largest economy
AND why should we be learning from Vietnam? Well consider the following READ : in 2021, Vietnam's paddy yield was 5.84 tonnes per ha, and this is coming from a country READ : that a had a per capita income of less than US$1000 for over 150 years to US$6000 by 2018, all achieved in a span of nearly 18 years.
YES, folks in this century, Vietnam had whipped our ass in not only grabbing SME investments from foreign nations that should have come to Malaysia, but also in the harvesting of paddy.
AND where did Vietnam gain its initial knowledge in turning paddy into US dollars and at the same time being a vibrant SME nation?
MEET Taiwan , who happens to be READ : the second largest investor in Vietnam.
HELLO Malaysia, the answers you seeking are starring right in front of your face, so free your mind and the rest will follow. VIEW : Taiwan's paddy yield per ha in 2021 was 69,675 per hg per ha.
CLEARLY, Taiwan has a Sugar Ray Robinson type problem, but that should not blind us to the fact pound for pound, that they are indeed among the best,if not the best in the world of PADDY.