CHAPTER 6

• Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
• Food security is determined by four main dimensions: physical availability, economic and physical access, food utilization, and stability of the other three dimensions over time.
• Physical availability of food is determined by the level of food production, stock levels, and net trade.
• Economic and physical access to food is determined by income and expenditure.
• Food utilization is determined by the body's ability to make the most of various nutrients in the food, which is primarily determined by people's health status.
• Stability of the other three dimensions of food security over time is determined by the ability to maintain sufficient food supplies and ensure food availability.
• Food security debates in the past focused on adequate supply of food and ensuring stability of these supplies through food reserves.
• Food availability addresses the "supply side" of food security and is determined by the level of food production, stock levels, and net trade.
• From the early 1980s, the importance of food access was increasingly recognized as a key determinant of food security.
• Food production is just one of several means that people have to acquire the food that they need.
• Farmers in Malaysia have low interaction with formal financial institutions despite facing financial problems in their cultivation activities.
• Issues related to food market access can vary across different regions and countries, but common challenges include high tariffs and trade barriers, non-tariff barriers, inadequate infrastructure and logistics, market concentration, supply chain disruptions, agricultural subsidies and dumping, climate change, limited access to financial resources, lack of market information, and addressing these issues often requires a combination of domestic and international policy measures, as well as collaboration between governments, international organizations, and the private sector.
• Farmers are frustrated with the bureaucracy of the financial institutions.
• Agricultural government bodies like the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (FAMA), Lembaga Pertubuhan Peladang (LPP) provide aid to farmers.
• Small farmers feel that agricultural government bodies will provide support.
• Bankers are reluctant to give financing to small farmers.
• Fear among farmers about paying back a loan or financing from conventional financial institutions is a common issue.
• Informal financing, such as loans from family members and landlords, is more flexible if farmers have problems with repayment.
• Concerns about insufficient food access have resulted in a greater policy focus on incomes and expenditure in achieving food security objectives.
• Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) is an agricultural practice that addresses environmental, economic, and social aspects in order to ensure healthy and excellent quality products.
• Soil enrichment is a process of adding supplements in the soil to increase its quality and productivity.
• The benefits of sustainable agriculture include maintaining the fertility of soil, reducing land degradation and soil erosion, aiming at reducing water consumption in farming, and increasing the biodiversity of an area.
• GAP is described by the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a collection of concepts that encourage sustainable farming and post-production processes.
• Crop rotation is a practice of growing a series of dissimilar or different types of crops in the same area in sequenced seasons to maintain the fertility of soil.
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control and modification of cultural techniques.
• The goals of sustainable agriculture are environmental health, economic profitability, and social economic equity.
• The certification of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) has allowed Malaysian farmers to expand into the export market and increase rural communities' incomes.
• There are 16 categorical elements in the MyGAP certification for agriculture, each of which contains unique guidelines or requirements depending on the Malaysian Standard MS 1784: 2005-Crop Commodities-Good Agricultural Practice (GAP).
• An accreditation process formerly known as SALM, to acknowledge farms that follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), function in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner, taking into account the quality and workers' health & welfare and safe production.
• Natural pest predators are a method of controlling pests like insects and weeds, using other organisms (predators).
• Sustainable agriculture is the production of food, fiber, or other plant or animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare.
• A cover crop is a type of plant grown primarily to suppress weeds, manage soil erosion, and improve soil fertility and quality.
• A third dimension of food security - food utilization - has become increasingly prominent in food security discussions since the 1990s.
• Utilization is commonly understood as the way the body makes the most of various nutrients in the food.
• This food security dimension is determined primarily by people's health status.
• From the definition of food security, four main dimensions of food security can be identified: physical availability of food, economic and physical access to food, adequate food utilization, and stability of the other three dimensions over time.
• The measure of the severity of food insecurity influences the nature, extent and urgency of the assistance needed by affected population group.
• Self Sufficient Level (SSL) explains the percentage of production in comparison to domestic consumption.
• Agro Bank is a statutory body in charge of arranging, providing, supervising and co-ordinating credit for agricultural purposes in Malaysia.
• Agro Bank, previously known as Bank Pertanian Malaysia (BPM), was established by an Act of Parliament on September 1st, 1969 and commenced its operations on January 1st, 1970.