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Background: Malaysia is strongly supported by the agriculture sector as the backbone to drive the economy. However, COVID-19 has significantly affected agriculture across the production, supply, and marketing chains. It also disturbs the balance of food supply and demand in Malaysia. COVID-19 was an unexpected pandemic that resulted in shock and panic and caused a huge global impact. However, the impacts of this pandemic on the agriculture sector in Malaysia, particularly in the production and supply chains, are still unclear and scarce. This review offers insights into the challenges, particularly in sustaining agri-food production and supply chains. It also highlights the opportunity and relevant measures towards sustainability in agriculture to avoid agri-food disasters in the future. Methods: This study was carried out through a desk review of the secondary source of information covering the impact of COVID-19 in Malaysia particularly in the agri-food aspect, and a wide range of strategies and initiatives as the effective measures to overcome the crisis of this pandemic. Online desk research of the government published data and customer desk research were utilized to complete this study. Search engines such as Google Scholar and the statistical data from the official websites including the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) and the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region (FFTC-AP), were utilized. Keywords such as impact of COVID-19, pandemic, and agri-food supply chain were used to conduct the searches. The articles identified to be related to the study's objective were then downloaded and included in the study. Descriptive methods were used as the primary analysis technique following the descriptive analysis and visual data analysis in performing the sources obtained. Results: This devastating impact damages the lives by causing 4.3 million confirmed infections and more than 290,000 deaths. This disease presents an unprecedented challenge to the public health. The lockdown restriction under the movement control order (MCO), for more than of the world's population in the year 2020 to control the virus from spreading, has disrupted most of the economic sectors. The agriculture industry was seen as one of the essential industries and allowed to operate under strict standard operating procedures (SOP). Working under strict regulations came with a huge price paid for almost all industries. Conclusion: This pandemic has affected the national agri-food availability and accessibility in Malaysia. This outbreak created a reflection of opportunity for sharing a more flexible approaches in handling emergencies on agricultural food production and supply chains. Therefore, the government should be ready with the roadmap and enforce the measures to control the pandemic without disrupting the agri-food supply chain in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq), a native plant grown in West Africa, is the world's most productive tropical vegetable oil. In the early 1870s, the British brought the African oil palm to Malaysia as an ornamental plant. A Frenchman, Henri Fauconnier, was responsible for establishing the first oil palm plantation in 1917 at Tennamaram Estate, Selangor. Palm oil production is essential for the Malaysian economy - producing as the second-largest volume of commodities in the world after Indonesia. There are 5.90 million hectares of trees planted in 2019 (Parveez et al., 2020). The independent smallholder (ISH) sector is a small-scale production entity. Hence it is generally seen that this sector is inefficient and unproductive compared to the mass production system of the estate sector. However, the lack of exposure to knowledge in good fertilizer practices is a significant factor influencing the low production of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) for independent smallholders (ISH) in Malaysia. A total of 1147 respondents were selected to be part of this study and were interviewed on their sociodemographic background, garden characteristics, knowledge, and practice of fertilizer application. Respondents were selected based on random sampling from each state in Malaysia. This study was conducted in 2015-2016 to examine their good fertilizer practices and their demographics. The majority of respondents are men aged 45 to 69 years, with their level of education being in secondary school. The average age of smallholders is 55 years, with average land ownership of 3.54 ha. They invest RM1019.19 on the purchase of fertilizer per hectare per year, with an average price of RM 87.77 at a weight of 50 kg per bag. Research show that the majority of respondents have general knowledge of the good fertilizer's practices. However, application rates of fertilizer by smallholders still lower than recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil plam industry which is developed over the past four decades has been a major contributor to the agricultural sector and the welfare of the state. In an effort to increase the country's export revenue, the productivity of palm oil smallholder needs to be improved. Thereby, the palm oil smallholders need to change their farming practices to a more productive and higher income. TUNAS (Guidance and Advice of Palm Oil) center then given the responsibility to implement best agricultural practices to small farmers. This study seeks to assess the capability of TUNAS technology transfer and it's impact to the productivity of small farmers using survey forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]