Rice Industry Statistics

During the launch of the agrifood by His Majesty, all the guests received several books as gifts. One of the books is a small booklet containing the Agriculture statistics of 2008. I was quite intrigued with the statistics on rice which looks like this:-


Throughout the last 10 years from 1999 to 2008, our local production has increased. The Agriculture Department has been slowly making local rice production efforts meeting the target of if I am not mistaken 20% of self sufficiency or something like that. That was not good enough and though the efforts of 2009 has been much more and has led to the new target of total self sufficiency in rice. Even from 1999 to 2008, we can see the local production increased from about 200 metric tons to about 900+ metric tons.

What's interesting is that the increase in rice production did not cause any dent in the rice imports. There was a sudden fall in 2000 but between 2001 to 2007, rice imports remained at around 30,000 metric tons and even increasing slightly in 2008 to almost 32,000 metric tons.

One effect is obviously this two data are on different scales but shown on the same paragraph. The data on imported rice is from 0 to 40,000 whereas on local production was from 0 to 1,000. So, the growth of local rice is quite miniscule to the overall scheme of things. The second obviously is population growth. Is it possible that any local growth is taken up by increasing population growth? The increase in 2008 I am speculating could be due to increased importation to buffer up our rice supplies due to the uncertainty of the supply exports from Thailand.

But whatever it is, it is interesting and without knowing much about rice industries and rice demands and supplies, it might be worthwhile to look at the data and see what can be read from it.

Brunei's Finest Veterans

My spare time this week has been taken up calling up some of Brunei's athletes in order to complete my article on Borneo Games. I asked a number of people for names and my Minister gave me this name - Cikgu Haji Abdul Razak bin Bongsu. Finding his contact number was one of the easiest. Two of his children are engineers with the Public Works Department.

When we finally talked to each other, I discovered another whole world. When I was a student in Singapore in the 1970s, anything about Brunei always excited us. The lowest hill in the world then, which was a tiny bump somewhere in Shell's golf course. That got a mention in the Guiness Big of World Records. And the biggest story (to us students in Singapore) was an athlete Aloysius Sibidol winning world records for discus and javelin throwing. You probably are saying to yourself, huh??? Yes Sibidol established world records - in his age group. He was a veteran athlete.

I knew the world of veteran athletes was there but I didn't know how big. When I talked to Cikgu Razak, I finally realised that there is a whole world out there. These veteran athletes are still active - doing their best despite being above 40. Cikgu Razak is 71 and he is still competing. The veteran athletes have their own competition and well attended too. They even have their own association - Brunei Darussalam Association of Veteran Athletes (BDAVA) and is associated with Asian Veteran Athletics Association (AAVA) and World Association of Veteran Athletes (WAVA).

Cikgu Razak has taken part in many athletics meets. He was formerly the Secretary of the Brunei Amateur Athletics Association and Vice Chairman way back in 1975. He was the Chef du Mission for Brunei to the SEA Games in Jakarta (1977) and Manila (1981) and other regional meets. He also organised the Merdeka Games in 1984 and active in trying to revive the Borneo Games. He founded the BAVA in 1983 and since then has been the President.

Last month, the Brunei veterans athletes have done the nation proud when they grabbed eight gold, two silver and one bronze medals at the Singapore Masters Open Athletics Championship 2009 at Gombak Stadium. Eight local veteran athletes took part in 15 tracks and field events. You see, it does not really matter how old you are, you can still shine. Cikgu Razak and the other Brunei veteran athletes are the best example of that.

Borneo Games

The Managing Editor of Brunei Times asked me to write an article about the upcoming Borneo Games. This is not an easy subject to write. You see, for most of the articles I have written, I have practically all the reference books and other reference articles somewhere in my library. So I generally am able to write most things about Brunei but give me a topic on sports, my mind will be unable to function.

Anyway after a few quick checks on the internet which yielded very little but sufficient to go on, the first one was actually held in Brunei in 1954. It was at SRC in Seria. 1954 is not a good year. Borneo Bulletin has yet to go live then and practically everything was in Seria because that's where the British government really is. Not much was in Town. The first 5 year RKN was just kicking off.

However Seria is where I was born and my family more or less were in Seria then. I phoned my dad and he said why don't I ask my uncle as he remembered that my uncle took part in the Games. I called up my uncle and had the surprise of my life. Not only did he took part, he took part in the first one!

And apparently in those days, the so called Brunei team was made up of entirely the athletics prowess of BSP's employees. The Brunei team really should be called Brunei Shell team as only my uncle was the only Bruneian in the team. The others were all expatriates. Nevertheless the 'Brunei' team won the Games in 1954 and subsequently in 1955 in North Borneo and in 1956 in Sarawak.

I didn't realise that in the early stages of the Games, it was held annually. By 1957, the Brunei Athletics Association took over the the management of the team. Without the expatriates imports, my uncle said that we could not win the tournament anymore and probably have not won it since.

Anyway, I had to talk to a number of people just to get my story, so look out for the article next Monday.

The 'new' Borneo Games was revived in 2005. This year is Brunei's turn to host it. It will will be contested by Brunei, East Kalimantan, Labuan, Melaka (the host of 2010 SUKMA XIII), North Kalimantan, Sabah, Sarawak, South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan. Now, that's truly Borneo.

Old Chinese Temple in Muara

Muara Chinese would remember this. This was the old chinese Temple in Muara. This was eventually demolised in the mid 1980s to make way for the expansion of the Muara Port.

Brunei Otters

A couple of months back, one of my junior colleagues took this photograph from his office. He has a nice office on the sixth floor of the MOD Building. That office overlooked the Highway and the airport as well as the huge canal flowing next to the highway. We have actually taken a boatride along that canal all the way from Kampong Ayer. When he first showed me this photograph, I was not sure what I was seeing. But when I cropped up the photograph. See, if you can recognise the animals.


Caught me by surprise too. I did not realise that there are otters living in our rivers. That means that the Brunei wildlife is more varied than I thought and to see a family of otters which honestly I have not seen in Brunei other than watching them on television even surprised me till now.

That really means we have to take care of our environment. We don't know what else is there that we inadvertently destroy in our haste to modernise.