The potential benefits of GPS for small scale fishermen in Malaysia

This conceptual study attempts to discover the potential benefits of GPS usage for small scale fishermen in Malaysia. Based on the review of literature and document analyses performed, three main benefits of GPS usage for the small scale fishermen were identified namely to increase their income to strengthen safety aspects and to enhance their technology skills and knowledge. This study has come out with a number of recommendations that can assist the concerned parties in constructing the best strategies to further enhance fisheries technologies usage especially the GPS among the small scale fishermen in Malaysia

Perception towards importance of information and communication technology among rural administrators

This study was conducted to examine the perception of Village Development Committee (VDC) in realizing sustainable development of rural community in Village Vision Movement (VVM) village and factors that affect it in three zones representing three states in Peninsular Malaysia. States selected were Selangor (central zone), Negeri Sembilan (southern zone) and Pahang (east coast zone). Six villages were selected from each state and the village selected were from villages listed in Village Vision Movement (VVM). A total of 235 respondents were chosen for this study. Overall, members of VDC perceived Information and Communication Technology or ICT from moderate to high in term of their importance for their village development. Zone, where respondents stayed had been identified to have significant difference in their perception towards the importance of ICT, while income per month of the VDC members indicated positive and significant relationship with their perception towards the importance of ICT

The influence of socio-demographic factors on work performance among employees of government agricuture agencies in Malaysia.

Work performance has been identified as the significant key for organizations to gain competitive advantage and superior productivity. Thus, this study intends to discover what exactly affect work performance among employees of government agriculture agencies in Malaysia. A total of 180 employees were selected as the respondents for this study. The respondents were chosen from ten government agriculture agencies in Malaysia. From the ANOVA and independent t-test conducted, type of residential house was found to have significant difference with work performance while Pearson Correlation employed indicated that age, working experience and gross monthly salary has significant and positive relationship with work performance

ICT Usage at Rural Libraries: Does Positive Youth Development exist?

This study was to discover the Positive Youth Development (PYD) dimensions towards ICT usage in rural libraries among youths in Malaysia. This is a quantitative design and descriptive study in nature, which involved 400 respondents among rural youths from 16 selected rural libraries in four states of Peninsular Malaysia were chosen based on multistage cluster and simple random sampling. Rural youth community in Malaysia exhibited a high level of PYD towards ICT usage at rural libraries especially on the level of confidence when using ICT. Based on the analysis performed, education level and employment status have significance difference, meanwhile, age has a positive relationship with PYD towards ICT usage at rural libraries. The findings are of limited generality due to the small size of the sample. However, the study has implications on the understanding of the acceptance of technology among socioeconomically disadvantaged people towards PYD. The practical implications are the implementation of PYD through ICT usage in local rural libraries instead of other positive places, particularly in terms of local community participation. Data on demographics can be used as evidence of service provision for the rural community in the future

Internet usage among agro-based entrepreneur: can it affect productivity?

This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of internet usage on agro-business productivity and factors affecting it. A total of 164 respondents were involved in the study representing agro-based entrepreneurs in Peninsular Malaysia. The respondents involved in agro-business such as food processing, plantation, animal rearing, farming, fisheries and non-food processing. Respondents were chosen based on the list of agro-based entrepreneurs provided by the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Farmers Organization Authority (FOA) and Agriculture Bank of Malaysia. A survey using a questionnaire developed for the study was used to collect data. Mean, percentage, frequency and independent t-test were generated to describe the general trend of the data. From the results obtained, the level of internet applications usage was at moderate level, while all of the eight internet applications listed in the study showed significant difference in term of internet potential contribution to agro-based productivity comparing between the users and non-users of the listed internet applications

The Ninth Malaysian Plan and agriculture extension officer competency: a combination for intensification of paddy industry in Malaysia

Agriculture interest in Malaysia has risen. This can be proved through government plans stated in The Ninth Malaysian Plan. One of the agriculture sectors that can be benefited through this plan is paddy industry. It is expected in 2010, the income generated by paddy industry will increase up to 988 million per year, thus depicts the potential it has. Paddy industry in The Ninth Malaysian Plan will be boosted through land rehabilitation and consolidation, increase number on R&D, paddy farmers will be exposed to more agriculture trainings, bigger credit allocation and better drainage and irrigation systems. In order to achieve this, the competency of agriculture extension officer is needed. Based on the previous studies, communication training is indeed important aspects that need to be intensified to strengthen the competency aspect of the agriculture extension officers. Previous studies also has show consistent findings that job performance, attitude, skills, knowledge, quality and quantity of works, use of technology and demography factors play important roles in cultivating competency to agriculture extension officers

The Ninth Malaysian Plan and FAO Extension Officer Competency

Agriculture interest in Malaysia has risen. This can be proved through government plans stated in The Ninth Malaysian Plan. One of the agriculture sectors that can be benefited through this plan is paddy industry. It is expected in 2010, the income generated by paddy industry will increase up to 988 million per year, thus depicts the potential it has. Paddy industry in The Ninth Malaysian Plan will be boosted through land rehabilitation and consolidation, increase number on R&D, paddy farmers will be exposed to more agriculture trainings, bigger credit allocation and better drainage and irrigation systems. In order to achieve this, the competency of agriculture extension officer is needed. Based on the previous studies, communication training is indeed important aspects that need to be intensified to strengthen the competency aspect of the agriculture extension officers. Previous studies also has show consistent findings that job performance, attitude, skills, knowledge, quality and quantity of works, use of technology and demography factors play important roles in cultivating competency to agriculture extension officers

Factors influencing the perception of youth agro-based entrepreneurs towards the role of ICT in increasing agro-business productivity

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) usage has become more common in this modern age and agriculture is one of the sectors that benefited from it. Based on this, a study was conducted at Institute of Social Sciences, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia during the year 2007-08 to know the perception of Malaysian youth agro-based entrepreneurs towards the ICT contribution to their agro-business productivity. Moreover, this study tried to discover the factors that affected this perception. The study covered all states in Peninsular Malaysia. Simple random sampling was used for sampling while face-to-face interviews using trained enumerators were conducted to collect required data. For analysis, SPSS software was used with application such as frequency, mean, percentage, standard deviation, independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression. In all 134 youth agro-based entrepreneurs were interviewed. Majority of respondents perceived a high contribution of ICT towards their agro-business productivity. The result revealed no significant difference in perception on ICT contribution between zones, gender and level of education. Three factors viz. age, electronic media usage and ICT usage were found to have significant relationship with perception towards ICT usage while age was found to be the highest contributor in perception towards ICT contribution

Sustainable livelihood among aquaculture entrepreneurs: the case of Cambodian migrants in Malaysia

This study attempts to discover the sustainable livelihood among the Cambodian migrants who operate the aquaculture industry in Pekan, Pahang. This study is qualitative in nature, based on a focus group discussion conducted among selected Cambodian migrants in Pulau Keladi Baru village in Pekan. The questions included within the interview protocol were largely based on the Pentagon developed by the department for international development. The Pentagon is a framework for sustainable livelihood based on five main capitals, namely human capital, social capital, financial capital, natural capital and physical capital. The data obtained were later transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis

Comparing adaptation ability towards climate change impacts between the youth and the older fishermen

In recent years, a considerable amount of studies published locally which focused on the influence of age on climate change ability. Accordingly, this has driven the present study to achieve its main objective which is to compare the adaptation ability between youth and older fishermen. The current research is quantitative in nature; hence, a survey was conducted on a total of 259 youth and older fishermen residing in different states of Malaysia, namely Pulau Pinang, Terengganu, Johor, and Kedah. The present study managed to conclude a unique and important result which stated that youth and older fishermen within the context of Malaysia have an equally strong adaptation ability. In regard to this matter, a number of recommendations were presented at the end of this paper with the hope that it can act as a basis for future scholars to conduct more climate change related studies