FOA director-general Azulita Salim said government grants could help the farmers to own milling machines costing around RM5,000 a unit.

“This is one method we can introduce so that farmers can own small machines. At least the shortage of local white rice can be mitigated through planting our own rice or eating the rice we planted ourselves.

“A rice milling machine can produce 2.5kg of good quality rice (per cycle),” she told reporters after visiting the FOA’s Tanjung Piandang rice purchasing centre here today.

She also expressed hope that three certified rice milling plants in Kedah, Perak and Selangor will help the country overcome the shortage of local white rice once they are fully operational.

“For now we only have one certified rice mill at Lahar Bubu in Penang that can process about 5,000 metric tonnes of certified rice seeds annually, but this is inadequate as we have 240,000 farmers and they need 72,000 metric tonnes annually,” she said.