What percentage of vegetables locally grown?

Recent revelation that 40% of vegetables in Malaysia are currently imported from China raises the question as to what percentage of vegetables in Malaysia are imported...and what percentage is grown locally.

Federation of Malaysia Vegetable Wholesalers Associations president Soo Cheng Kee said there was concern among the farmers and wholesalers over the issue.

“There are two groups of vegetables that we import.

“One is what we can’t grow well here like the Hong Kong kailan and the other is what we import to supplement the local supply like cabbages,” he said, adding that about 40% of vegetables in Malaysia were currently imported from China.

These include the Hong Kong kailan, Chinese cabbage, Beijing cabbage, round cabbage, cauliflower, baby kailan and carrots.- Star, 8/10/2008 - Farmers: Keep us informed

We have got the necessary environment for the growing of many different kind of vegetables. The problem always have been the provision of land and assistance to farmers.

Noting that prices of vegetables in the market need to be kept low and reasonable for the general population, in an age when cost of living and cost of farming is increasing. There is a need to provide more assistance and subsidies to the farmer.

Maybe the government could purchase vegetables at a high price from the farmer and re-sell it at a lower price to the wholesalers...to the consumer. That means government subsidies.

Questions to the government(that some MP/ADUN could raise):-
Is there such a scheme in place at this time?
How much is being used to support this scheme?
What are the government plans in achieving target of at least 80% locally produced vegetables?

Several years ago, in a meet the MP session in PJ, constituents asked Donald Lim (as he then was) why the government was acquiring/allocating land for golf courses - but not allocating sufficient land for farming. [Of course Donald avoided the question and talked about the benefits of playing golf - stress reduction, etc...]