SEREMBAN: The Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (FAMA) needs to boost efforts to help agriculture entrepreneurs via incentives and initiatives to compete at international levels, Deputy Agriculture and Food Security Minister Datuk Chan Foong Hin said.

He praised FAMA’s efforts in implementing various government initiatives to tackle food security issues, including the Agromadani Sales and its interventions in the distribution of eggs, chicken and local white rice, adding that they were in line with the increasing population and high demand for food.

“Excellent services for agriculture entrepreneurs need to be continued as they contribute so much to the country by ensuring the sustainability of food supply even when faced with various challenges.

“Previously, we have faced high demand for local white rice from consumers following a hike in the price of imported rice,” he said during his speech at the 2024 FAMA Convention at the FAMA Training Institute in Port Dickson yesterday.

A total of 300 officials from FAMA’s senior management at the headquarters, state and district levels participated in the three-day convention that began on Dec 3.

Chan said that the convention was held to ensure that FAMA’s plans for 2024 could be implemented effectively through the involvement of its officials till the district level.

“This convention can be described as the agency’s support and effort to ensure the success of ministry policies to achieve the agriculture and food security goals,” he added.

Chan also launched FAMA’s CDA-ERT framework, a guide to raise the agency’s readiness and response in tackling unexpected disasters and witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between FAMA and the Cooperatives Commission of Malaysia (CCM) on strategic collaboration and partnership in marketing agricultural and food industry production.–Bernama