Cameron Highlands, June 15 (Sin Chew Daily) — Farmers are badly hit by the extension of nationwide lockdown by another two weeks due to drastic drop in demand.

Flower growers have no choice but to discard the flowers on a daily basis since June 1.

Cameron Highlands Floriculturists Association president Lee Peng Fo said farmers are unable to stop their losses, workers' wages and time despite dumping the flowers.

"Florists and flower wholesalers do not come under essential services. Orders for flowers have stopped since May 30. Farmers who rely on local orders receive zero income," said Lee.

In an interview with Sin Chew Daily, Lee said flower growers incur huge losses as lockdown measures were also imposed by Thailand and Singapore. Flower sales to these two countries were down by 40% whereby orders from overseas were reduced by 60%, he said.

Farmers have already planted various kinds of flowers before lockdown measures were announced. They were unable to recoup their capital losses and the time spent on growing the flowers.

"Some farmers convert to planting greens instead," said Lee.

He said the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry accepted a report from flower growers last year on the losses incurred by them.

The ministry responded by saying it would be providing subsidies to the growers. However, until today, farmers still have not heard from the ministry, he said.

Lee hoped that the government would look into flower growers' dilemma by offering subsidies to help them through the current crisis.

He said the farmers were facing cash flow issues besides suffering losses.

Cameron Highlands Floriculturists Association deputy president Wong Seng Yee said flower growers had reduced their production by 40%.

Since June 1, they have incurred up to RM13.2 million in losses for discarding some 480 tons of fresh flowers in two weeks.

Wong hoped the government could draft an aid plan for farmers as soon as possible, as some have stopped planting while others were struggling to pay for their workers' wages.

He suggested the government to subsidize a farmer RM5,000 if the farmer lost RM10,000 by discarding the flowers.

Farmer Liu Jian Long said he catered mainly to the local market while 30% of the flowers were exported.

Since lockdown measures were imposed last year, he started to sell some of the flowers online but the response had not been encouraging.

The delivery service was often delayed due to the pandemic and fresh flowers were unable to last for long period of time, he said.