Development and Performance of the Pepper Industry in Malaysia: A Critical Review
Abstract
The National Commodity Policy 2011-2020 was developed to increase the national income by harnessing the potential of commodity export revenues. Despite continuous efforts implemented by various related agencies, the overall performance of major commodities, particularly pepper, remains unsatisfactory. Regarded as a sought-after ‘king of spices’, pepper has become one of the most prized and important commodities traded globally. This paper highlights the development and performance of the pepper industry in Malaysia and discusses practical strategies and recommendations to transform the pepper industry. Besides conducting interviews with the industry experts to gain first-hand information, content and thematic analysis was employed based on secondary data research in this study. The findings of the study show that even though pepper is mostly used in food-related industries, its potential in pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical sectors remains underexplored. Globally, the overall supply and demand of pepper continue to increase, though the demand has recently exceeded supply. However, continuous new planting and farm
expansion initiatives by major producers caused the total global pepper supply to exceed consumption in 2018. In fact, pepper prices have declined more than 70% since 2015, which affected the overall household income of the rural community engaged in pepper farming. While experiencing low prices, smallholder pepper farmers and the industry continue to struggle with low domestic consumption, low production, higher cost of farm inputs, lack of extension services, low impact of research, development and innovation, ageing farming population, intense competition from other producing countries, low prices for quality pepper, limited subsidy to support continuous farming, pepper-related diseases, lack of new technology, and poor investment in downstream activities. Given this, the performance of the Malaysian pepper industry has fallen below expectations.
References
Amadeo, K. (2020, January 16). Government Subsidies (Farm, Oil, Export, Etc). US Economy and News. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/government-subsidies-definitionfarm- oil-export-etc-3305788
Awit, U. (2017). Pepper Production Costs. Malaysian Pepper Board, Kuching.
Awit, U. (2018). Report on Pepper Farm Attacked by Diseases. Malaysian Pepper Board, Kuching.
Chand, R., & Phillip, L. M. (2001). Is WTO providing level playing field subsidies and support in agriculture. Economic and Political Weekly, 36(32), 3014-3016.
Chen, J. P. U., & Mansel, E. L. (2017). 100 years of agricultural development in Sarawak. Kuching, Malaysia: Lee Ming Press Sdn Bhd.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dardak, R. A. (2015, February 4). Transformation of Agricultural Sector in Malaysia through Agricultural Policy. Taipei, Taiwan: Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region. Retrieved from https://ap.fftc.org.tw/article/818
Department of Statistics, Malaysia. (2017). Statistical Yearbook 2017. Malaysia: Department of Statistics.
Eng, L., & Gumbek, M. (2007, July 3-4). Contributions of R&D on diseases and pests to the development of the pepper industry in Sarawak, Malaysia. Proceeding of the 2007 Conference on Plantation Commodities (pp. 170-179). Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Malaysian Cocoa Board.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). (2014). Youth and Agriculture: Key Challenges and Concrete Solutions. Retrieved from https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/39135645/Youth+and+agriculture_Key+challenges+and+concrete+solutions/e803da0e-edc8-461b-961a-233a2dc61458.
Groenewald, T. (2004). A phenomenological research design illustrated. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(3), 42-55.
Gulick, J. V. (2018, October 30-31). Crop Report-Pepper. Paper presented at the ESA Conference, Florence, Italy.
Haryani, N. (2016, August 2). Anugerah Harta Intelek Negara 2016. Berita Harian. International Pepper Community (IPC). (2018a). Pepper Statistical Yearbook 2017. Retrieved from Jakarta: IPC.
International Pepper Community (IPC). (2018b). World Pepper Production by Major Pepper Producing Countries in 2018. Retrieved from Jakarta: IPC.
Janvry, A. D., & Sadoulet, E. (2010). Agricultural growth and poverty reduction: Additional evidence. The World Bank Research Observer, 25(1), 1-20.
Khalid, A. R., Wong, S. K., & Liwan, A. (2009). Competitiveness with sustainable agriculture: Win, lose or draw? International Journal of Economics and Management, 3(1), 87-99.
Khalid, A. R., Wong, S. K., & Alias, R. (2007). Pepper industry. In M. A. Fatimah, R. A. Nik Mustapha, K. Bisant, & M. A. Amin (Eds.), 50 years of Malaysian Agriculture: Transformational Issue, Challenges & Direction (pp.442-473). Serdang, Malaysia: Penerbit Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Khew, C. Y., Lau, E. T., Evy, E. M., & Haroun, M. S. (2015). Identification of suitable reference genes for gene expression study of black pepper (Piper Nigrum L). Focus on Pepper, 7(1), 59-72.
Kueh, T. K. (1978). Pepper Foot Rot. Technical Bulletin, 2. Agriculture Resaerch Centre, Sarawak.
Kueh, T. K. (1979). Pests, diseases and disorders of black pepper in Sarawak. Kuching, Malaysia: Department of Agriculture Sarawak.
Lau, E. T., Hwang, S. S., Lily, E., & Paulus, A. D. (2013). Discovery of genes related to disease resistance in Piper species. Focus on Pepper, 5, 29-40.
Malaysian Pepper Board. (2016a). Pepper Production by Countries. Kuching, Malaysia: MPB Strategic Planning Division.
Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB). (2016b). Annual Report of Malaysian Pepper Board. Kuching, Malaysia: Author.
Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB). (2017). Annual Report of Malaysian Pepper Board. Kuching, Malaysia: Author.
Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB). (2018a). Annual Report of Malaysian Pepper Board. Kuching, Malaysia: Author.
Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB). (2018b). Survey of Pepper Farmers in Sarawak. Kuching, Malaysia: MPB.
Manohara, D., Mulya, K., & Wahyuno, D. (2004). Phytophthora disease on black pepper and the control measures. Focus on Pepper, 1, 37–49.
Ministry of Primary Industries and Commodities (MPIC). (2012). National Commodity Policy 2011-2020. Retrieved from Putrajaya: Ministry of Primary Industries and Commodities.
Nicolopoulou-Stamati, P., Maipas, S., Kotampasi, C., Stamatis, P., & Hens, L. (2016, July 18). Chemical Pesticides and Human Health: The Urgent Need for a New Concept in Agriculture. Front Public Health. Retrieved from https:// doi:10.3389/fpubh.2016.00148
Ooi, T. C. (2019, July 16). Malaysia and Indonesia to jointly fight EU's palm oil ban at WTO. New Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.nst.com.my/business/2019/07/504866
/malaysia-and-indonesia-jointly-fight-eus-palm-oil-ban-wto
Paulus, A. D. (2007). Development of superior genotypes and cultural practices for improving productivity of pepper in Sarawak, Malaysia: Progress, achievements and research needs. Proceeding of the 2007 Conference on Plantation Commodities (pp. 149-155). Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Malaysian Cocoa Board.
Paulus, A. D., Sim, S. L., Eng, L., Megir, G., & Rosmah, J. (2011). Pepper Production Technology in Malaysia. Kuching, Malaysia: Malaysian Pepper Board and Department of Agriculture Sarawak.
Pemandu Associates. (2018). National Transformation Study for Plantation and Commodities Sector. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Pemandu Associates.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors. New York: Free Press.
Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Free Press.
Rosli, A., Radam, A., & Rahim, K. A. (2013). Technical efficiency of pepper farms in Sarawak, Malaysia: An application of Data Envelopment Analysis. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 4(7), 227-234.
Shafinah, K., Sahari, N., Sulaiman, R., Saif, A. F. M. S., & Ikram, M. M. (2019, November 25-27). m-Naslada: A mobile application for black pepper crop disease information. Paper presented at The 2nd Joint International Conference on Emerging Computing Technology and Sports (JICETS), Bandung, Indonesia.
Sim, S. L., & Paulus, A. D. (2011). Introduction. In K. F. Lai & S. L. Sim (Eds.), Pepper Production Technology in Malaysia. Kuching, Malaysia: Malaysian Pepper Board.
Wong, S. K. (2007). Simulative impact of environmental friendly production method of Sarawak Pepper (Unpublished doctoral disseration), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
Yap, C. A. (2015). Determinants of the efficiency and efficacy of bio-chemical fertilizer on the soil, yield and growth performance of black pepper. Journal of Advances in Agriculture, 4(3), 460-468.
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
