Permanent land titles good business sense

I refer to the Malaysiakini report Selangor's excos to declare assets in which it is reported that Pakatan Rakyat's Perak MB Mohammad Nizar said that his government will be issuing permanent land titles to all new villages in Perak. If this comes to pass, it will be a sort of poetic justice. Here's a Muslim MB from PAS, who was instinctively feared by many Chinese and Indians, is delivering long-deserved land titles for the villages in which the MCA bosses ‘grew up’ but where MCA could not deliver. These are deserved land too, considering many Chinese families had been forcibly moved there and have lived there for generations. This will shatter for good MCA's empty racist promises and Umno's racist resistance to grant land to those who deserve them. The Perak and other state governments should further consider granting land titles or long leases to fruit and other agricultural producers without regard to race, provided they abide by strict pesticide and herbicide laws, and take care of the land and water sources. Many farmers can make use of the lime dust and water in Perak to produce high-quality fruits and vegetables. They will help reduce food prices, supply value-adding factories, create jobs, increase export earnings, and transform the local economy. It's a wonder why the previous state government had not done it. Cronyism and racism were apparently higher priorities for them. In the past, not only were the farmers not granted land titles or long leases, they were chased out of their farms to make way for housing projects operated by well-connected politicians. Read this. A key historical bottleneck has been the lack of long-term rights to land use. Unable to do long-term planning, the agricultural producers could not take the risks of investing in land improvement, permanent irrigation, more advanced on-site washing, sorting, packaging, cold- storage, water-treatment, and automation facilities. They could not erect longer-lasting, climate controlled, plastic housing and net covering for higher-priced fruit and vegetables that will also allow them to cut back on expensive fertilisers and pesticides. Without a clear standing, most farmers could not corporatise, form cooperatives, consolidate, transfer ownership to professionals, secure long-term finances, and hedge for cost fluctuations. The Pakatan Rakyat state governments should immediately hold talks with the associations of farmers, vegetables, live stock, and aqua-culture, to find ways to stimulate agricultural economy and employment, food production, and exports. But I can already give them the general answer: the farmers basically need more freedom to do business, and less risk of losing the rights to use the land. This article was originally published on Apr 7, 2008, in MalaysiaKini.com as a letter to the editor.