Farming? Are we going back to the future?

Recently, Government had driven to rejuvenate the agricultural sector and transform it into a growth engine. PM also called for more local and foreign investments to boost small- and medium-scale agro-industries in the country. While at the same time, some of us have different view that concentrating on agriculture is regressive as though the country is going backwards. But do we realize that manufacturing and ICT sectors were already self-sustaining and their growth was being propelled by their own momentum? Furthermore, I dont think we need to concentrate on emphasizing those profitable sectors when we have agro-industry as another bag of money. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the Government had allocated RM255mil for this and hoped to attract 10,000 or more participants to the industry by 2010. He also stated that we (agro-industry) are going to focus on high-powered commercial development in this new corridor.

In the past, farmers could only grow and sell their products by the roadside, now they will be taught to add value to their products. Its definitely not possible for us to see poor farmers becoming owners of food production factories. On the other hand, Pak Lah indirectly had exposed the latest tool of overcoming unemployment. We as a Malaysian, should give our 100% support on enhancing this new sector to be the biggest contributor of the nation's economic development.