5. LOCAL ALTERNATIVES TO FISHING AND FUTURE PROGRAMMES

5.1 Cottage industries

Cottage industries designed to utilize local materials may provide certain opportunities for fishermen's families to earn subsidiary incomes. At present, in agricultural areas, a variety of products such as rattan furniture, pottery, sea-shell ornaments, batik¹ and songket² are produced for both export and domestic sales. The Kedah Regional Development Authority (KEDA)³ is implementing various projects on cottage industry for the improvement of income in the rural population of the State of Kedah. In some cases cottage industries may become full time activities during a certain period of time for fshermen's families. For example, in Trengganu weaving baskets and mats is an important activity during the monsoon period when there is no other gainfull employment to be found (Bailey, 1983). According to a study carried out by the State Economic Planning Unit, Trengganu in 1977, there were 249 such industries in the State of Trengganu. The manufacture of songket, brassware and batik were the most common activities. The recent study⁴ by SEPU indicated further prospects for the development of cottage industries in Trengganu such as handicraft, carpentry, boat building, and furniture making as it may not pose any problems to the marketing.

¹ Method of printing coloured design on textiles and material so treated.

² Cloth used for making women's dress.

³ See Appendix 2

⁴ Trengganu Masterplan Study, Trengganu State Government, 1983.

Once people learn new skills and demonstrate their ability, then the next stage would be to develop the small-scale industry to be more capital intensive and a higher technology industries. In Trengganu there is a proposal to set up a Handicraft Development Corporation to assist handicraft industries such as batik, brassware, mengkuang¹ and wooden items and would be involved in all aspects of their development and marketing. Plans are under way in kelantan to establish a batik menufacturing centre in the vicinity of Kota Bharu to absorb local surplus labour, particularly women. Likewise in Pahang, it is planned to establish a ceramic production centre to cater for the needs of tourists as well as local customers.

It is difficult to project the nationwide probable employment opportunities generated by cottage industries. However, it can be said that although it is unlikely that cottage industries will become dominant to fishing communities, opportunities may at least exist for members of fishermen's families to generate supplementary incomes under the concerted efforts among the concerned agencies.

5.2 Manufacturing

Whilst the manufacturing sector may provide one of the most prospective areas to absorb surplus labour, industrial areas are normally situated far from fishing villages. However, the recent programme to promote the development of the tourist industry in Pulau Langkawi, Kedah may lead to a growth in the manufacturing industries in the field of construction, cement, marble and catering services such as hotels, restaurants and perhaps sport fishing.

¹ Mats made of leaves.

The Kedah State Economic Planning Unit has estimated that the Programme, once fully implemented in 1990, would create about 6,000 direct employment opportunities in this connection. More job opportunities would also be created in other areas such as transport, the fruit industry etc. stimulated by the Programme. Since Pulau Langkawi has a large fishing population, the Programme could offer excellent employment opportunities to fishermen and their families.

The Kedah Development Authority (KEDA) has identified three areas in which to establish small-scale fish-related industries such as fish processing and commercial aquaculture investment. These are Singkir Laut & Darat, Tg. Dawai, and Kg. Sungai. Detailed plans have already been prepared for the Singkir Laut & Darat area and expect to create approximately 300 direct employment opportunities for fishermen by 1987. The projects in another two areas are scheduled for implementation in 1989.

Employment opportunities in manufacturing (e.g food, beverage, wood products, rubber products, textiles, chemicals, metal products, machinery etc.) can also be found in the existing industrial sites as well as the proposed industrial sites in most states although no specific allocations have been made to fishermen. For example, in Kedah, under the Fifth Malaysia Plan, 4 new industrial sites are to be established with the intention of creating job opportunities for about 15,000 people.

Table 41 : Employment Opportunities Projected By SEPU, Kedah (1986–90)

In Perak, 64 projects including food processing, textiles, woodbased industry, chemicals, electronics, transportation and tourism have already been approved for implementation in 1984. Once implemented, it is expected that these projects would create a total of 4,300 employments.

In other states, such as Trengganu, Kelantan, Pahang and Johore, timber and wood-based industry may offer some employment opportunities due to their vast timber resources. Employment opportunities can also be found in the tourist industry along the coastal regions of these states. For example, in the south-east coast of Johore, a huge tourist zone is under construction and it is expected to provide considerable employment opportunities for the residents in the area. Specific to the state of Trengganu is the Petroleum-based industry which may also offer some employment opportunities.

5.3 Aquaculture

Aquaculture may offer alternative opportunities for employment. Plans have been drawn up by LKIM to siphone off about 720 fishermen into cage culture, brackishwater pond culture, as well as cockle and mussel farming in the next five years. It is envisaged that approximately 400 fishermen would be absorbed by brackishwater pond culture, 260 fishermen by cage culture and 60 by mussel farming. These figures should however be considered as indicative since problems on proper project preparation, marketing of fish, procurement of seedlings and feed for fish will have to be addressed. (See Table below).

Besides LKIM, the DOF is carrying out freshwater aquaculture projects which may have some capacity to absorb surplus labour.

5.4 Animal Husbandry

Livestock rearing has always been part of the village life for fishermen and their families. Animals such as chickens, ducks, goats and cows are reared either for their own consumption or as a supplement to their incomes, and the activity is usually carried out in the backyard or in the open space around the house. Labour requirements can be provided by part-time involvement of fishermen or other members of their households. In some states (e.g. Kedah, Pahang), the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) provides selected fishermen with goats, sheep and ducks through loan schemes and technical assistance. The DVS encourages the participation of rural farmers in livestock rearing and provides suitable training to help them in better farm management and techniques. Training is undertaken by the Veterinary Training School, Kluang.

Poultry

Malaysia has achieved 100% self-sufficiency in poultry meat and farm eggs over the years. The great majority of the total output of poultry meat and duck eggs is supplied by commercial farms, 85% to 95% respectively and which are capable of achieving economically viable operations as well as controlling the market. The DVS is discouraging part-time poultry rearing unless intended only for home consumption. In the State of Kedah, with the assistance from LKIM and the DVS, 6 fishermen were provided with 500 chicks each to start with in 1985. If successful, DVS may expand such activities in the future.

The prospect for further development of poultry farming however, is not very bright due largely to the over supply of poultry in the market. The recent drop of poultry meat price to as low as $2.20/kg signifies the excessive supply. The activity may perhaps be economically viable in the southern part of the Johor since there is still a market for poultry meat in Singapore, which has converted most of its poultry farms into other industries.

Goats and sheeps

Ever since the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in goats and sheep in 1980, the total number of goats and sheep has decreased sharply. This incident also discouraged farmers rearing goats on a part-time basis. However, in 1981, a new environment suitable for the rearing of goats was found in rubber and oil palm plantations. Here, goats act as a ‘weed controller’ and are found quite effective in removing weeds beside helping in the supply of meat. Now there is a high demand for goats and sheep which are usually supplied by the DVS in the states of Negeri Sembilan, Kelantan and Trengganu. The DVS in these states have provided selected participants with 20 –100 goats or sheep where 11 goats or sheep (10 females and 1 male) were under the give-back¹ scheme with the DVS while the rest were obtained through bank loans.

Cows and buffalos

Cows and buffalos rearing is mainly carried out for reproductive purpose and is quite popular since it brings a good income with minimum care. Beside, it also provides a means of transportation for farmers in padi fields or in the plantations. For example, in Johor, there are about 1,800 buffalos in a total of 19 plantations located in Pontian, Muar and Batu Pahat. The DVS has been importing cows and buffalos of good quality in order to reduce the mortality rate as well as raise the birth rate. Under the project, each selected participants will be provided with 5 – 10 female cows or buffalos under the usual give-back agreement. The DVS is encouraging participants to expand their activities into a full-time scale with loans from the Agricultural Bank.

¹ Under this scheme, the participant is required to return a certain number of goats or sheep, usually offsprings, back to the DVS in a few years time.

In the state of Trengganu, a total of 3,458 cows and 272 buffalos were provided to participants under this scheme during the Fourth Malaysia Plan (1981 – 85) while in Pahang, 3,610 cows and buffalos were given.

Milk Production

This Scheme has received much attentia on only over the last 5 or 6 years. In order to collect milk efficiently from farmers without losing its quality, milk collection centres have been set up by DVS in various parts of Malaysia. At present there are about 40 Milk Collection Centres (MCC) in various parts of Peninsular Malaysia. Beside collecting cows' milk for marketing, the DVS also provides extension services such as artificial insemination, credit, feed and advisory services. The DVS also plans to set up small collection centres around the existing MCC under the Fifth Malaysia PLan (1986 – 90). This will enable them to expand collection services to cover more villages and thus more farmers.

Opportunity appears to exist for fishermen to participate in the Milk Collection Scheme. Revenue from each cow is between $100 – $150 per month. If a participant receives 3 cows under the Scheme, his monthly income could improve quite substantially. In Johore, the DVS has provided about 1,800 cows to the participants under this Scheme since 1978.

Calves Rearing

Under this Scheme, calves age between 6 – 9 months are given to participant for fattening until they attain the weight of 350 –400 kg. Traditionally, the cows are fed with grass found along the padi embankments or in any green natural pastures. Although this method is cheap, the process is long, about 2 years. Furthermore, there must be enough green pastures in the area for the Scheme to be feasible. However due to the introduction of artificial feed PKC, it has now become possible to rear calves in a feed lot of a moderate size (only 4 square metres per cow) in 7 or 8 months. This may attract fishermen who only have access to a small piece of land.

The costs and returns of calves (10 heads) reared by using PKC are shown in Table 43.

Table 43: Costs and returns for calves reared by using PKC

LKIM's cooperation with the DVS in Kedah to assist the fishermen in livestock rearing is shown below.

Table 44: Cooperation between LKIM and DVS in Kedah in Livestock Rearing, 1985

If the scheme is found to be successful, similar schemes are expected to be carried out in the future.

5.5 Agriculture

Although fishermen's present limited involvement in agriculture may not preclude increased future involvement, agricultural opportunities seem distinctly limited in the immediate hinderland of the coastal fishermen communities on both West and East coasts. This is particularly true in the case of rice farming and rubber plantation. In many places, existing farm sizesa are so small that even owners of farm land are faced with seasonal underemployment. Added to this are many landless agricultural labourers throughout Malaysia. As a matter of fact, there has been a substantial number of landless farmers who have joined FELDA schemss to become landowners. The Fifth Malaysian Plan concentrates on improving the standard of living of the existing farmers rather than attracting more new farmers. Probably, all that small-scale fishermen can presently hope for from the agriculture sector in most parts of the Peninsular Malaysia, is part-time employment with supplemental incomes through harvesting vegetables, fruits, cashew nuts, water melon etc. which however does not help the relocation effort in terms of withdrawing fishermen from the fishing sector. In addition, a survey on farmer's income carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture recently revealed that their income is not much better than that of fishermen if not worse. The only agricultural activities that can yield a higher income are oil palm and rubber.

Tobacco planting may offer some opportunities to fishermen, although this activity is limited to the state of Kelantan and Trengganu where the soil condition is found to be suitable for tobacco planting¹.

In fact, there have been plans by the National Tobacco Board (NTB) to open up new areas for the resettlement of fishermen as the target group. The Alor Ketitir project² is one of the examples where 43 fishermen were resettled. Their income after joining the project have been augmented significantly to reach M$2,300 per month as compared to M$250 before they joined the project.

It should also be noted that the tobacco growing industry in Malaysia has been heavily protected by the Malaysian Government through import duties and tariffs on imported tobacco. This implies two important facts:-

1. That tobacco produced locally has no export potential since the domestic prices of tobacco are much higher than imported prices. In 1982, price of domestically produced tobacco was M$68.25/kg as compared with M$18.25/kg C.I.F. value of imported tobacco.

This implies that local producers would face severe competition if the tobacco is to be exported in terms of quality and cost.

¹ In 1978, Trengganu and Kelantan produced a total of 18.7 million pounds of flue cured Virginia tobacco, or 92% of the nation's total production of 20.3 million pounds. Other states that filled up the gap were Johore, Kedah/Perlis and Pahang.

² Refer to the TCP/MAL/4403 Technical Report 3.

2. As the Malaysian Government obtains a very substantial revenue from import duties and tariffs on imported tobacco, any increase in the local tobacco production would mean a loss of revenue to the Government since it can only become an import-substitution rather than an export item. It is thus analoguous to benefitting the tobacco growers at the expense of the government.

Another crop, cocoa may have potential as a source of export for the country. However, more research and development need to be done to improve the quality. Presently, about 30% of the total cocoa production is derived from smallholders where cocoa is mainly grown as an intercrop with coconuts. This accounts for the low quality of the cocoa produced as compared to other major producers. The total area under cocoa cultivation in 1982 was 126,000 ha which was mainly located in Sabah (51%), Sarawak (5%), Perak, Selangor and Johor with the total production of 50,500 tons. Plans are underway to expand cocoa cultivation into other states. For example, in Pahang, under the Fifth Malaysia Plan, a total of $8.5 million has been allocated to assist about 3,000 farmers in cocoa cultivation. In Trengganu too, 3,284 ha of land has been cultivated for cocoa representing 3.3% of the total areas for agricultural activities.

As an incentive, th DOA will provide seedlings, fertilizers and pesticides to smallholders who wish to cultivate cocoa especially those that own coconut plantations. The DOA has no plans to cultivate cocoa on a commercial basis, but rather, it will be carried out by either FELDA or other state land development agencies.

Other crops such as coconut and fruit trees may only provide secondary income opportunities to those fishermen who have access to large areas of land. Such examples are seen in Geting and Besut.

5.6 Land Development Schemes

FELDA and other land development agencies (e.g. KESEDAR, KEJORA, etc) may provide considerable opportunities for absorbing surplus labour from the fishery sector on a long term basis. According to the FELDA Settler Census published in 1976, there were 34,936 settlers who had joined FELDA schemes till 1976, of which there were only 1,384 fishermen, representing 4% of the total. Paddy planters (12,764 households, accounting 37%) were by far the most important group the of population in terms of occupation, followed by rubber tappers (9,505 households, accounting for 27.2%).

According to FELDA's Fifth Malaysia Plan, FELDA plans to settle about 32,849 people over the next five year period in various parts of Malaysia. Of them, the majority will be settled in the eastern part of Peninsular Malaysia as well as in East Malaysia due to the presence of the vast areas of undeveloped land available in these regions while only a limited area of undeveloped land can be found in the western part of Peninsular Malaysia. For example, FELDA is planning to resettle only 1,018 people in Perak and 570 in Kedah over the next five years. This represents only about 5% of the planned target.

In the past, land development agencies used to have problems in looking for potential settlers partly because of the settlers' apprehension toward entering a new environment. In recent years, however, many smallholders have become interested in resettlement projects due to the significant achievements made by FELDA. At present, all vacancies in FELDA schemes have already been filled for the coming years and there is a large number of applicants on the waiting list. At the end of March 1985, there were a total of 10,385 applicants on the waiting list. (i.e. Pahang 2,333; Johor 753; Negeri Sembilan 1,431; Trengganu 1,108; Kelantan 250; Kedah 1,469; Perak 2,674; Melaka 33 and Perlis 334). During the Central Steering Committee Meeting on Fishermens' Resettlement Schemes held in September 1985 it was agreed that FELDA would allocate 600 vacancies to fishermen per annum. With this agreement, it can be safely said that some 3,000 fishermen could be relocated into FELDA schemes over the next 5 years.

Besides FELDA, the state land agencies will be able to absorb substantial number of surplus fishermen. It may not be unrealistic to assume that these agencies other than FELDA may be able to absorb about 500 to 1,000 fishermen's households over the next 5 years.

5.7 Off-shore Fishing

According to the DOF, there could be considerable employment opportunities offered by off-shore fishing in future years. Table 45 indicates sources of employment which may arise from increased activities in trawl fisheries of over 70 GRT operating in Zone C and D in both the West and East Coast. Greater opportunities may exist on the East Coast where the number of trawlers could be increased from 119 to 241, an increase of 122 boats accomodating a total of 732 fishermen. On the West Coast there may be possibilities of absorbing an additional 53 trawl boats of over 70 GRT with 265 fishermen into Zone C and D. Thus in all some 195 trawl boats of over 70 GRT with about 1,000 fishermen could be added to this sector of fishery on both the West and East Coast.

Table 45 : Boats and Labour Requirements in Off-shore Trawl Fishing of Over 70 tons, Zone C And D

Table 46 shows that there would be employment opportunities for 378 fishermen in the purse seine fishery of more than 70 GRT operating in Zone C and D. The present level is considerably lower than the optimum level of exploitation and some 21 boats could be added to yield increased catches without damaging resources.

Thus there could be an absorptive capacity of some 1,375 fishermen in both trawl and purse seine fisheries operating Zone C and D in Peninsular Malaysia. It is believed that a large part of these labour requirements could be met with surplus labour existing in traditional and commercial fisheries operated in Zone A and B.

Apart from high capital requirements, the major constraints to development of offshore fishing seem to be related to fishermen's attitudes, which include their unwillingness to stay longer at sea, uncertainities on resource availability and catches, and unfamiliarity with offshore waters, although the Government is providing several fiscal and other incentives in terms of income tax, exemption from import duties, provision of training and credit, and furnishing fishery facilities.

Table 46 : Boats And Labour Requirements In Offshore Purse Seine Fishing Of Over 70 Tons East Coast, Zone C And D

Rearing chicken in a more intensive manner appears to offer limited scope due to marketing problems. It has been estimated that the animal husbandry sector could absorb around 30 to 70 fishermen for full-time engagement and 65 to 115 part-time during 1986 to 90.

It appears that chances are distinctly limited for alternative opportunities for fishermen in agriculture and cottage industries on a full time basis, though there may be some possibilities for their family members to engage in such activities on a part time basis.