22 June 2022

Farmers and smallholders urged to make use of cooperatives’ help

Cooperatives are important pillars of our nation, playing the role as the third economy contributor and also safeguarding the welfare and needs of its associate members in various aspects such as economically, social, culture, and community.

The managing expertise of cooperatives, driven by values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity can help farmers and smallholders increase their income via a collective method.

Hence, I concur with the remarks made by Deputy Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC) Dato' Sri Dr. Wee Jeck Seng, who urged cooperatives to play a greater part in helping palm oil smallholders who are currently facing an input cost increase.

For example, cooperatives could make orders in bulk for items such as fertilisers and the various main components imported from other countries. This lowers the total cost of these items and consequently the overall cost of operations.

One of the primary differences of cooperatives and private companies is the combined resources of members in the cooperative, compared to that of an individual company. This allows the cooperative to get better opportunities such as lower prices.

Therefore, I hope that more efforts will be taken to educate the society and industry players to understand the role and assistance offered by cooperatives, especially when the nation is going through a challenging period of agricultural input cost increase.

Dato’ Leong Kim Soon

MCA Spokesperson

-MCA online-