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Extended Abstracts
CLIMATE CHANGE – ITS EFFECTS ON THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN
MALAYSIA
by
Mustafa Kamal Baharuddin,
Director, Soil Resource Management and Conservation Division, Department of
Agriculture, Malaysia
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Malaysia is blessed with good tropical weather. Due to its proximity to the
equator, stretches from latitudes 0o 60' N to 6o 40' N and from longitudes 99o
35' E to 119o 25' E. Malaysia is a humid tropical country and its climate is
characterized by maritime monsoon winds which are subject to interference by
mountains in Peninsula Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra.
The average annual rainfall is about 2,420 mm/yr in the peninsular, 2,630
mm/yr in Sabah and 3850 mm/yr in Sarawak. However, the annual rainfall is
more than 4,000 mm/yr in mountainous areas of Sarawak, and more than
3,000 mm/yr in the northern half of Peninsular Malaysia and the coastal areas
of Sabah and Sarawak.
The monthly mean air temperature is 25oC to 28oC in the coastal lowlands and
monthly relative humidity is between 75 to 90%.
Agriculture in Malaysia contributes about 3.6% of GNP and at least a third of the
country’s population depends to the agriculture sector for their livelihood. Thus,
significant climate change definitely affects the agriculture sector in term of
production as well as the impacting socio economics problem to the people
involved in the sector and the nation as a whole.
CLIMATIC CHANGE IN MALAYSIA
Climate change or global warming is the most serious environmental threats of
the 21st centuries. Extreme or severe weather is simply really bad weather or
weather on larger, more serious and devastating scale, creating a natural
disaster. A disaster caused by climate change could be defined as a serious
disruption to the functioning of a community or a society causes widespread
human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of
the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.
In Malaysia, forecast have been made on climate modeling using 14 GCM’s
(Global Climate Models) which shows that Malaysia could experience
temperature changes from 0.7 to 2.6 degree Celsius and precipitation changes
ranging from -30% to 30%.
There are many factors identified to cause and influence climate change. These
factors could be global, national and localized factors. Global warming, open
burning (haze) are some of the good examples of global factor that are transborder in nature whilst industrialization, clearing of land for agriculture,
encroachment of fragile ecosystem are examples of national and localized causal
factors.
In general, Malaysia could be considered as a free zone from climate related
disaster. However, mild climate related disasters are quite frequent to happen
lately. These refer to the occurrence of floods and droughts that caused
significant socio-economic impacts to the nation while the occurrence of
landslides due to excessive rainfall and strong winds happened at the hilly and
the latter, at the coastal areas caused minimal damage.
In agriculture, one of the matters that affected continuously is flood. Flooding can
be defined as any area of land covered by water which is normally dry.
Sometimes water levels can rise slowly and unnoticed. Other time, flooded can
be rapid, sudden and unexpected.
The floods incidence happened
Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Johor
was reported that the warming
Southern Malaysia, compliments
the floods.
in the southern states of Malaysia, involving
and Pahang. Johor was the worst affected. It
effect in Siberia lead to a heavy rainfall in
with poor drainage systems, thus exaggerate
Without adequate measures, occurrence of floods could cause displacement of
people, damaged infrastructures and losses of agricultural production from
eroded/inundated lands. In general, about 9% of the land area in Malaysia (2.97
million ha) is flood prone and as many as 3.5 million people have become
victims. Monetarily, it is difficult to estimate the quantum but a conservative figure
of RM 100 million has been used to estimate the average flood damage per year.
Second matter related to extreme climate change is droughts. A drought can be
defined as a continuous and long period in which rainfall is significantly below the
average expected for a region at that time of year.
One of the well remembered but localised incidence was the 1991 drought in
Malacca that caused the drying up of Durian Tunggal Dam and resulted in
prolonged water rationing in most parts of the state.
There have been numerous drought occurrences in the past, but the most
significant one was the 1997/98 El Nino related drought which caused extensive
impact to environment and social activities across the whole nation. Many parts
of the nation including the state of Selangor, Sarawak and Sabah were
threatened by extensive wild forest fire due to prolong dry weather condition. The
local situation coupled with that happened in the neighbouring country had
resulted in months of hazy atmosphere that threatened the health of every
citizen.
Sabah was perhaps the most affected state by the 1998 drought. All the
Divisions suffered extremely high rainfall deficits (some as low as 90% of long
term mean) for a period ranging from 4 to 9 months, affecting more than 2,797
km2 and 170,000 people. About 1580 km2 was engulfed in wild fire, of which
more than 100 km2 were agricultural lands. More than 7,200 farmers were
affected with an estimated loss of about RM 7 million. A number of districts had
to go for water rationing to ease off the situation. In few villages, their hill padi
crops were totally wiped out prompting the authority to send in food supply to the
affected areas. Similar situation was experienced in the North Eastern part of
Sarawak near Miri region. The prolonged and extremely dry spells had resulted
rampant wild fire that had destroyed a sizable area of agricultural crops.
IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AGRICULTURE
The impact of climate change affects several sectors in Malaysia mainly
agriculture, forestry, public health, energy sector and water & coastal resources.
Agriculture is one of the sectors greatly affected by extreme climate change.
Physical damage, lost of crop harvest, drop in productivity, vigor and others
related to crop potentials are examples of direct and indirect effect of the extreme
climate change.
In Malaysia, at least one third of the country’s population depends on the
agriculture sector for their livelihood, with some 14% working in farms and
plantations. From the land use perspective, about 39.2% of total land use or
about 5.18 million hectares are planted with tree crops like rubber, oil palm,
cocoa, coconut, fruits and vegetables.
Thus, occurrence of disaster due extreme climate change such as floods, could
impact damaging effect on the economy, social and psychology of the people
affected. Recent floods in Johor had displaced 110,000 people, damaging an
estimate of RM 0.35 billion worth of infrastructures and RM 2.4 billion of
economics losses. An estimate of RM 84 million worth of agriculture produce
were damaged or losses affecting 7000 farmers.
The sustainability of food supply could also be affected by climate change.
According to official projections, increasing in temperature and changes in rainfall
pattern could affect yields directly. Increased in temperature and changes in
rainfall pattern could fasten the spread of fungus and diseases directly or
indirectly ( e.g Phytopthora sp in rubber plantation), thus affecting yield. States
that most vulnerable to these changes are the northern Peninsular Malaysia as
well as the coastal of Sabah and Sarawak.
Changing climate affects the agriculture industry. Based on agricultural cycle,
increasing in rainfall is not good for rubber. Rubber plantations could suffer due
to lost of tapping days and crop washouts.
Some crops like oil palm could flourish with higher rainfall. However, excessive
rainfall is detrimental as yield is significantly affected. It was reported that flood
related problems in southern Malaysia had decreased the production of crude
palm oil to 1.1 million metric ton or 26.3% in December 2006
The impacts on agricultural differ from one to the other. Climate change signifies
by decrease in rainfall will affected crops that need wet conditions such as
paddy, vegetables and others. Rice grain yields also may decline by 9 to 10% for
each 1 degree Celsius rise. Prolonged droughts make it impossible to sustain the
flooded rice ecosystem and it will jeopardize security of food supply. Prolonged
rainfall will also affect the sunshine hours. Thus, affecting yield of crop (e.g. rice
grain filling).
Meanwhile, the rising in sea level due to climate change could force the
abandoning of low-lying planted areas such as paddy, corn, coconut and others.
TACKLING
CLIMATE
AGRICULTURE SECTOR
CHANGE
-ADAPTATION
MEASURES
IN
In general, Malaysia adopts ‘precautionary principles’ to mitigate ad adapt to
climate change, even though there are still scientific uncertainties. At the national
level, Malaysia has formed a National Climate Committee to formulate and
implement strategies on climate change. The strategies drawn include policies
on energy usage, public awareness on climate change, food supply and effective
forest and coastal management to mitigate deforestation and the rising of sea
level.
Apart from the national policies implemented, specific adaptation measures are
necessary to manage sectoral impacts due to climate change. In the agriculture
sector, adaptation measures are vital to ensure sustainability of the agriculture
activities. These measures include:
The use of Agroclimatic Classification in agricultural planning.
The Department of Agriculture drafted an agroclimatic map of Peninsular
Malaysia based on the agriculture rainfall index (ARI) in 1990. Ten
agroclimatic (ARI) zones were identified according to the number of
consecutive dry and consecutive wet months. The agroclimatic maps
defined the various regions according to the variations in environmental
requirements of different crops as well as on the regional differences of
the natural environment, particularly climate and soils.
The use of Soil Suitability Criteria for crop production.
Physical and chemical properties of the soil affect crop production. Soil
depth, texture, clay fraction, soil structure, bulk density and available soil
moisture are among the major soil physical properties that affect crop
production. Soil reaction, cation exchange capacity and nutrient
composition are the soil chemical properties, important in crop production.
By considering these properties in soil suitability classification, the
success of a crop production endeavour can be ensured with a
reasonable margin of safety.
Others adaptation measures include
-Develop plant varieties that are tolerant to high temperatures and high
water use efficiency
-Preserve Permanent Forest Reserves and water catchment areas to
ensure adequate water supply for agriculture
-Strengthen agricultural extension services ( soil conservation measure
and production efficiency)
-Strengthen Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and biocontrol procedures
to deal incidences of pest and diseases
-Improve regional and international cooperation on agriculture- climate
change related issues
-Introduce agriculture insurance to minimize risk related to climate change
CONCLUSION
Climate change is a trans-border issue and its occurrence in Malaysia is evitable.
In managing climate change, Malaysia has drawn and implemented policies and
strategies on climate change to minimize impacts on our economy.
Agriculture sector is an important sector in Malaysia. However, agriculture is the
most vulnerable sector to the extreme climate change. Floods and droughts are
the most common phenomena or disaster on the extreme side.
Floods and droughts need to be managed holistically as its impact is enormous,
economically, socially and psychologically to the people and to the nation. More
importantly, it could affect the sustainability of food supply of the nation. In
addressing adverse effect of climate change on agriculture, specific adaptation
measures to manage climate change is necessary.