The sustainability of Malaysian agriculture basic food production by 2030 / Suzilah Ismail and Thanusha Palmira Thangarajah

Agriculture is described as the art and science of developing the soil, growing crops, and raising livestock. Three main domains influence food production, which are crops, livestock, and fisheries. Food production plays a significant part in developing nations' economies and gives the population the fundamental wellspring of food, income, and job. Before independence and until the early '80s, Malaysia was an agricultural country. However, the scenario has changed due to the rapid development of the manufacturing and services sectors, which boosted the economy. Hence, the agriculture sector has been shrinking where the basic food production also has been affected. This is very alarming because the impact is very severe on our basic food production such as rice, beef, chicken, fish, etc. Relying too much on importing them would cause shortages in the future if the supplier (i.e., other countries) decided not to sell them or increase the prices. Therefore, this study aims to determine the sustainability of basic food production by 2030. The sustainability was determined by forecasting the supply of basic food productions and compare it with the population demand. Percentages were used in measuring the gap between demand and supply. The four forecasting techniques used were Double Exponential Smoothing, Holt's Exponential Smoothing, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), and Time Series Regression. The performances were evaluated based on three error measures (RMSE, GRMSE, and MAPE). The findings showed that the future supply of basic food production has failed to meet the demand, indicating the unsustainability of basic food production by 2030. Thus, drastic strategic agricultural policy planning needs to be established and implemented by incorporating modern smart farming technology. The paradigm shift in basic food production is vital in selfsustaining basic food to ensure Malaysia's future food security.