This year the Malaysia Agriculture, Horticulture & Agro Tourism (MAHA) will celebrate a century of existence. MAHA has evolved but the acronym has been maintained. Let’s take a philatelic walk through history….
Agriculture has always been an important economic driver of the Malay Peninsular. Way before MAHA organised an exhibition in 1923, there were precursors. One of them was the Agri-Horticultural Show held in Singapore from 16 – 18 August 1906.
MAHA originally started as Malayan Agri-Horticulture Association set up in October 1922 as an expansion from the Klang Agri-Horticultural Association (Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle 06 October 1922). The first exhibition was held from 30 June – 02 July 1923. in the Selangor Turf Club field.
The agricultural exhibition was even continued in a modified form during the Japanese Occupation and was held in Kuala Lumpur from 01 – 02 November 1942 as the Selangor Agri-Horticultural Exhibition.
After the Second World War, MAHA came back on 02 August 1947 as one of the largest agricultural exhibition of the year. in Coronation Park (roughly the present day Stadium Merdeka).
In 1961,a special Commemorative Cover was issued for the MAHA exhibition held from 31 August – 03 September 1961.
MAHA changed its name based on a government announcement in 1972 to become Hari Peladang, Penternak, dan Nelayan Kebangsaan with the name change in the exhibition starting from 1975. In 1999, the name was changed back to Malaysian Agriculture, Horticulture and Agrotourism with the acronym kept as MAHA.
The exhibition continued to attract attention and grew so large that it was accorded the Malaysia Book of Records as the Largest South East Asia exhibition in 2008.
Pos Malaysia issued a Sem Ku in MAHA 2012. Thanks for Setemadik for the image check out the blog here:
There was however a pause during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Pos Malaysia issued a pair of overprint Miniature Sheet for MAHA 2022.
This year Pos Malaysia will again issue 2 setenant stamps of RM 1.30 each to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Malaysia Agriculture, Horticulture & Agro Tourism (MAHA) on 14 September 2024 in MAEPS Selangor.
More updates soon.
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NOTE: As the author does not collect postal slogans, the postal slogans released to promote MAHA is not included in this article.
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