JASIN, April 18 — The country’s pineapple export industry has not been affected by the current West Asia crisis even though a significant portion of the export market is in the Middle East.
Malaysian Pineapple Industry Board (LPNM) director-general Mohd Khairuzamri M. Salleh said this was due to high demand for the fruit in several other countries such as China, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
“From the marketing aspect, we have a wider alternative to resolve the pineapple export issue in this West Asia crisis situation because exports to the Middle East only involve around 15 to 20 per cent.
“In addition, the production of the fruit to meet the demand for export to existing markets is still insufficient… for example in China, the demand for pineapple is high which we are still unable to meet,” he told reporters at the Jasin Correctional Centre here today.
He said this after a Walkabout Programme and Pineapple Promotion Campaign of the Office of the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security which was also attended by minister’s political secretary, Yuhaizad Abdullah.
Mohd Khairuzamri said the country’s pineapple industry self-sufficiency rate has also reached 102 per cent, so there was no need to import the fruit.
He said for this, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (KPKM) was targeting exports of up to 4,000 containers of pineapple per month to the global market by 2027. However, so far the country’s pineapple industry has only been able to supply about 1,700 containers of pineapple.
“We can only produce about 530,000 metric tons of pineapple per year and Malaysians alone eat 12 kilogrammes of pineapple per person per year especially the premium variety.
“The amount has increased compared to previous years because people used to dislike eating pineapple because it was sour and made their tongues sting,” he said.
In another development, he said the production of silage, which is an alternative food for livestock such as cows, produced from pineapple waste, has had a huge impact on ruminant farmers to reduce the cost of farming involving animal feed, as well as helping pineapple entrepreneurs generate additional income.
He said for example, under the flagship project, the state LPNM is collaborating with the Jasin Correctional Centre to produce silage and 18.82 tonnes of silage have been successfully produced from 2024 to today with a market price of between RM10 and RM12 per kilogramme.
Meanwhile, Yuhaizad said that to date, a total of 197,197 pineapple entrepreneurs are registered under LPNM with an area of 135.27 hectares and the Alor Gajah district dominates cultivation with an area of 67.89 hectares followed by Jasin with (60.10 hectares), Melaka Tengah (7.28 hectares).
He said as of last year, a total of 1,000 youth participants in Melaka had received the Young Agropreneur grant under KPKM with a total of RM345,000. — Bernama
Date: 18 April, 2026 6:00 pm
Source: Malay Mail
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