Call Prefix : PR-T

Call Suffix : 1989

Call Cutter : T - RuSo 1

Location : SEARCA Library

Format : TD

Publisher : University of the Philippines Los Banos,

Publication Date : February 1989

Publication Place : Los Banos, Laguna, the Philippines :

Summary : The study aimed to determine the socio-economic variables that influenced the abandonment of alienated rice land by farmers in the district of Kuala Pilah, state of Negeri Sembilan, Peninsular Malaysia. A stratified random sample of 100 was taken-- this was equally divided between those respondents currently cropping their land (the planters) and those currently not doing so (the nonplanters). Primary data were collected from respondents by means of an interview schedule. The results of the study showed that most of the respondents were males, aged, married and possessed only primary education. Due to net outmigration of family members, their medium sized nuclear families (5-6 members) shrunk to small sized ones (1-4 members). The respondents have had a long farming experience of at least eleven years, showed high membership affliation with the local Farmers' Association but a "no contact" type of relationship with their extension agent. The sole-ownership of rice land parcels of sizes that were less than one hectare, predominated. The nonplanters were significantly different from the planters in two aspects -- most of them were absentee landlords and had a higher number of neighboring abandoned rice parcels. The planters enjoyed a higher farm income when compared to the nonplanters but they lagged behind in annual income (excluding rice). For all respondents, annual income (excluding rice) accounted for at least 90.0 percent of total income. The gravity of the problems as to water and farm labor insufficiency was significantly higher for the nonplanters compared to the planters. All respondents showed high dependence on hired labor which was not easily purchased. The respondents were quite homogenous in terms of land preparation and agronomic practices--the use of 4-wheeled tractors, fertilizers and pesticides (although not always at recommended rates) prevailed. Manual weeding and harvesting was commom among the respondents. Majority of the nonplanters were biased towards rehabilitating their idle rice land with other crops like rubber, oil palm and cocoa, principally because of the high risk factor associated with rice growing and the relatively lower level of satisfaction obtained in terms of rice yield, income from rice and the rice price subsidy offered. The Chi-square and 't' tests showed that there is a significant relationship between the farming status (whether a planter or a nonplanter) and the following variables: absentee landowner, distribution of abandoned neigboring rice land, insifficiency of farm labor. More specifically, the nonplanters tended to be those respondents who where absentee landlords, had neighboring rice parcels that were abandoned and faced the twin problems of water and farm labor insufficiency. The Discriminanat Functions indicated that the best linear prediction for land abandonment consists of the variable absentee landowner, multiple ownership of a single parcel of rice land, status of neighboring rice land, size of rice land parcel and sufficiency of farm labour. The Discriminant Functions reflected a 95.0 percent accuracy in reproducing the actual survey classification of the respondents into their relevant subpopulations, i.e., planters or a nonplanters based on the farmers demo-socio-economic and technical characteristics.