When launching the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) in 1969, the then Deputy Prime Minister (the late Tun Abdul Razak) stressed that diversification was Malaysia's greatest need in agriculture, and a few weeks later, in an opening address to a conference on crop diversification organized by the Incorporated Society of Planters, he stated that agricultural diversification had been a national objective for some years. The steady progress towards that objective, he claimed, was “evidenced by the rapid increase in palm oil production, the expansion of acreage planted to high yielding padi varieties, recent increases in tapioca production, and current interest in sugar cane, cocoa, maize, soya beans, groundnuts”.