The Malaysian National Vision Policy and the advancement prospects of the Malay small-scale farmers

Malaysia’s post independence history indicates that the dreamed goal of creating highly accomplished Malay small-scale farmers had been an elusive one. It waxed and waned with the status accorded to the country’s agricultural sector. In glowed in Tun Razak time (1957 – 1976) and dimmed in Tun Mahathir era (1981-2000). Then, beginning 2003 and as the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis, the newly minted National Vision Policy (NVP) which incorporated the Third National Agriculture Policy had reinstated agriculture as a growth sector, and thus rekindled the hope. This paper examines the prospects of developing the Malay small farmers in this NVP phase. The focus was the implementation of two high impact programmes enshrined in the NVP, namely, the Balance of Trade Action (BOT) Plan and the Contract Farming Project in which the development of the agro-food subsector which represents the very niche of the Malay small farmers constitutes the main agenda and promises to relaunch the farmers onto becoming global agropreneurs. The results found the performance of the two high impact programmes least encouraging. In other words, the prospects of developing the Malay small farmers remain uncertain and doubtful. Weakness in agriculture marketing seems to be the root of their undoing. In conclusion, improving the prospects of developing the Malay small farmers in this NVP era calls for the nurturing of the marketing savviness in them.