| Research Abstract |
Since the end of the 1960s, rice farming in Southeast Asia has experienced dramatic technological change, with the consequent increase in rice production. Malaysia was no exception until the 1970s, however, from around 1980 the production of rice began to decrease in this country. This study aimed at the clarification of process of the decline of rice farming and farmers' responses in Malaysia. Research results may be summarized into the following points. First, Malaysian rice policy aimed at the increased rice production and the protection of Malay rice farmers. Up to the 1960s, priority was given to the incraese in rice production by two means of infrastructural improvement and technological innovation. Since the introduction of New Economic policy in 1971, policy emphasis was shifted to the improvement of farmers income. Second, rice production continued to increase up to the 1970s through the implementation of rice double-cropping. The downward turn of rice farming around 1980 was caused mainly by technical problems of irrigation projects and rapid emigration of rural labor to urban areas. There exist clear regional patterns in rice farming and the distribution of abandoned rice fields. Third, on the West Coast area there are many farmers who took advantages of various improvement to establish a viable rice farming. On the East Coast areas the serious problem of abandoned rice land exist and is being tackled by large-scale rice estates, mini-estates and group farming. However, most of them suffer from a low level of profitability. For the future, development of rice farm management, it seems vitally important to enlarge the size of farming business, with the intensified and diversified use of land, rather than the expansion of physical size of farm.
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