Grain Corn Growing Malaysia: A New Comeback
Although Malaysia had grown grain corn since the 80's but this crop was not accepted by farmers. The popular corn growing is sweet corn, because the price fetched a higher price than grain corn. Malaysia is way back in term of production and hectarage compared to other ASEAN Countries like Indonesia, Thailand and the Phillipines . We found that what are the reasons why this crop was not really 'take-off' in the country. 1. NO Suitable Variety to be planted 2. Cost of production very high 3. No suitable machinery available esp harvesting and drying 4. No government intervention Malaysia import grain corn every year from Brazil and Argentina for almost RM 4 Billion ( 300,000 metric ton). Just imagine the amount of foreign exchange!, although Malaysia is exporter of chicken and pig.