KUALA LUMPUR - At a time when shoppers in Malaysia are complaining of bare shelves amid the Covid-19 pandemic, fishermen and vegetable farmers have had to dump their produce because they have not been able get it to their customers, which include restaurants and supermarkets.
Farmers have been dumping their stock, blaming the roadblocks, shorter operating hours and lack of manpower to offload the trucks. About half the vegetable stalls in the wholesale market have also closed, said the Kuala Lumpur Vegetable Wholesalers' Association.Online shopping website Lazada has created a new online sales and delivery service to help farmers from Cameron Highlands sell their vegetables to customers. It starts from March 30.
"We take whatever we can accept from the fishermen and partner with Lazada to push it out to the market. It has been super crazy. Our orders have spiked by four or five times the usual amount." "One reason is that more people are health conscious and in some areas, where fresh goods have been scarce, the demand has gone up," he added."In fact, if we have more vegetables we can sell more, since overall demand has increased," he said.