Ajidasile hannah canadian international conference slide

Canadian International Conference on Global Studies 2015 (CGS 2015)

CREATING AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY INDEX: THE CASE OF RICE FARMERS IN MADA, MALAYSIA

Presented By:

Ajidasile Oluwagbemisola Hannah

INTRODUCTION

The quest for awareness of sustainability has increased around the globe due to thegrowing concern about future food production and changing climatic condition

This fight for food security and environmental safety has pinpointed sustainabilityissues to be paramount (Siwar and Hossain,2001)

The concept of sustainability development is a well defined one but the exact meaningand definition has caused strong debate (Ciegis et al, 2009)

It is a broad multifaceted concept

It is a dynamic concept not a static one

It depends to a large extent upon the maintenance/ enhancement of soil health.

INTRODUCTION CONT’D

It is concerned with “meeting the needs of the current generation without compromisingthe ability of subsequent generations to meet their own needs” (BrundtlandCommission, 1987)

Brief background of the study area

In Malaysia, rice is a traditional staple food crops and the industry is the mainlivelihood to nearly 297, 600 farmers

Muda Agricultural Development Authority (MADA), is a specialized institutionof the Malaysian government to improve paddy production

It is the largest granary area and considered the “rice bowl” of Malaysia(MADA, 2010).


MADA rice production is dominated by conventional methods of production

Active use and over-dependence of herbicides

Burning of paddy stalk after harvesting to facilitate land preparation, control

pest and disease

Lack large, industrial-scale growers (average farm size of 2 hectares)

Less productive farmers due to (old) age factor working in the fields

There is widening disparity among farmer incomes


Figure 1. Map of Locality Areas of MADA, Malaysia

(Source: EPP10-Strengthening and enhancing rice crop

productivity Muda region

Figure 2: The Regions in MADA, Malaysia

(Source: EPP10-Strengthening and enhancing rice crop productivity

Muda region)

AIM AND OBJECTIVES

This work is therefore aimed at creating agricultural sustainability index with

reference to rice production in MADA, Malaysia.

Specific objective

to describe the underlying principles, the procedure and rationale for scoring

each sustainability items

Farmers practices to

soil health (soil fertility management),

plant protection (insect, disease and weed management) and

socio-economic of the farmers.

formed the basis for accessing the sustainability

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study area is located on the coastal alluvial plain in the northwestregion of Peninsular Malaysia

Sources and Method of data collection

Primary and secondary data

Embraced the three aspects of sustainability

Focused on present agricultural practices

Sampling techniques

402 randomly selected farmers (selecting from the four regions)

MATERIALS AND METHODS CONT’D

Fig. 3 Framework of Sustainability Indicators for MADA Farmers

ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS

• Soil fertility management

• Pest and disease management

• Farm management practices

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

• Crop diversity

• Land productivity

• Farm size

SOCIAL INDICATORS

• Age of farmer

• Level of Education

• Family size

• Use of credit

• Pluriactivity of the farmers

SUSTAINABILITY

INDICATORS


Action Plan

Actions Principles

Item

selection

The underlying principle is that farmers responses must show some minimum

degree of variation in order for the practice to included to the index

It enables differentiation among farmers in their overall degree of sustainability

Each of the 60 practices covered in the instrument were considered for inclusion

in the sustainability index


Bivariate

relationship

Determining whether possible variable for inclusion in the index shows show any probable

relationship with each other

For instance

Strong correlation between one or two (or more) variables, one of the two or more variables is

dropped on the assumption that one variable can adequately convey indications provided by

the other

Variables with little correlation is excluded from the index on the basis that such variable

would certainly not contribute much to determine the patterns intended to be indicated by the

scoring index.

Index

scoring

(4 steps)

Each practice scored individually according to its contribution to sustainability.

i.e. Positive signs (reduction in synthetic chemicals), negative value (increased usage of chemicals

over time) and zero signs (no changes over the usage of chemicals)

Assigning weight to practices in respect to the relative importance in the production of the

practices


Index

scoring

(4 steps)

Handling missing data situation

Adjusting the ASI computation scores for each farmer (in a range of 0 and

100)

Index

Validation

Involved two approaches

Internal validation (item analysis)

External validation

The scores of aggregate sustainability index were assigned to the three distinct

sustainability classes using the following range of index range:

Unsustainable production system : < 40%

Sustainable production system: 40% - 50%

Highly sustainable production system: > 50%


Type of production practice Index Score

Environmental Indicators

Insect pest control (maximum score =44)

Basic for deciding to spray BPH:

- Follow warming sign system Yes = 0; No = +1

- The presence of pest in paddy field Yes = +1; No = 0

- When there is damage to the field Yes = +1; No = 0

- Based on the economics threshold Yes = +2; No = 0

Use bacterial insecticides Yes = +3; No = 0

Pesticide cocktail No= 0; Sometimes= +1; Quite often= -2

Change over last 5 years in application of insecticides More often = -4; No change = -2; Less now = +2

Number of sprayings for the most important insects for both seasons

0 sprays =+2; 1-3 sprays= +4, 4-6 sprays= +2; 7-9

sprays= 0, 10-12 sprays= -2; 13-15 sprays= -4; 16-18

sprays= -6;

> 18 sprays= -8

Non- chemical means for insecticides control:

- Choose pest resistance varieties Yes = +0.5; No = 0

- Modify planting date Yes = +0.5; No = 0

- Burning paddy straw Yes = 0; No = +0.5

- Use biological control Yes = +0.5; No = 0

TABLE 1. Production practices included in the unadjusted Agricultural Sustainability index (ASI)


Disease control (maximum score = 8.0)

Number of sprays for most important disease for both seasons

0 sprays = +1; 1-3 sprays= +2;

4-6 sprays = +1; 7-9 sprays= 0; >

sprays = -1

Non-chemical means for disease control

- Choosing disease resistance varieties Yes = +0.5; No = 0

- Modify planting date Yes = +0.5; No = 0

- Ensure paddy not planted too close Yes = +0.5; No = 0

- Plow Yes = +0.5; No = 0

Weed control (maximum score = 8)

Number of sprays for the most important weed for both seasons0 sprays = +1; 2 sprays = 0; 3-6

sprays = -1

Non- chemical means for weed control

- Mechanical weed control Yes = +1; No = 0

- Use of hand tools Yes = +1; No = 0

- Using natural biological control Yes = +1; No = 0

- Accurate water management Yes = +1; No = 0

- Plowing Yes = +1; No = 0


Soil fertilizer maintenance and enhancement (maximum score =12)

Number of application in inorganic fertilizer

0 0r 1 application = 0;

2 applications = +1;

3 applications = +2

Percentage of total applied nitrogen (N) from organic source

0% = -1;

1-50% = 0;

> 50 = +1

Changes over last 5 years in application of inorganic fertilizer

More = -2;

No changes = 0;

Less now =+2

Other means to enhance soil fertility and health:

- Mix lime with water Yes = 1; No = 0

- Waste from paddy Yes = 1; No = 0

- Livestock manure Yes = 1; No = 0

Others (maximum score = 3)

Heard about IPM Yes = 1; No = 0

Taken IPM course Yes = 1; No = 0

Practice IPM strategies Yes = 1; No = 0


Social indicators

Age

< 30years = + 5; 31 – 40years = +4;

41 – 50years = +3; 60 –70years = +2;

> 70years = +1

Education

Never attend school = 0; Primary = +6;

Lower secondary = 9; Higher secondary =

11; Universities = +13

Family size < 5 = +1; 5 – 9 = +2; >10 = +3

Use of credit Yes = + 1; No = 0

Non-agricultural activities Yes = + 1; No = 0

Economic indicators

Crop diversities Yes = 1; No = 0

Farm size< 3 Ha = 1; 3 – 4 Ha = 2; 5 – 6 Ha = 3;

> 7Ha = 4

Land productivity< 5mt = 1; 5 – 10mt =2;10 – 15mt = 3;

> 15mt = 4

Note: the maximum range of score in unadjusted ASI = 107

RESULTS

TABLE 2: Summary of statistics for

farmer’s socio-demographic

characteristics

Variables

Avera

ge

Minim

um

Maxim

um

Standard

deviation

Age (years) 55.82 25 80 11.333

Land (Ha) 3 0.29 9.21 1.928

Education

(years) 8.02 0 13 2.91

Household

size (person) 6 1 13 2.042

TABLE 3. Final adjusted overall ASI for rice

farmers in MADA, Malaysia

Index value

Sustainability index

criteria Frequency

Mean _ 49.14

Median _ 48.84

Mode _ 41.41

Range _ 30.38 - 76.04

0.00 – 40.0 %

Unsustainable

production 30 (7.46)*

40.1 - 50.0 %

Sustainable


> 50%

Highly sustainable


*Figures in parenthesis are percentages

DISCUSSIONS

From table 2, Most of the farmers are small holder farmers (those who cultivated farm size between 0.29ha to 6.0ha )

Most of the farmers are old (seen from the average age of 56years)

The level of education was 8years on the average (this shows highest percentage of educated farmers)

From Table 3, the ASI valves for the 402 farmers range from 30.38 to 76.04 (scale: 0 to 100) with mean value of 49.14

The overall analysis shows that 92.5% of the farmers to be sustainable while 7.46% were unsustainable in their production system.

The analysis shows that farmers who practice sustainable production are those with smaller farm size as supported by Nwaiwu et al. (2013) and Kadiri et al. (2014)

CONCLUSIONS

Sustainability is more than whether farmers does use or doesn’t use any synthetic fertilizerand agricultural chemicals

From the result, the high scores in the overall ASI was attributed to the high score in thefarmers’ environmental sustainability index

The farmers shows great inclination to follow integrated pest management (IPM) practices

High percentage of farmers follows IPM rules in spraying brown plant hopper(BPH) whichrequired highest effort in both wet and dry season

Low score in the economic sustainability index was due to small holding, less crop diversity,land productivity (yields)

The high agricultural chemical inputs shows increasing trends compared to the past 10 years

THANK YOU FOR

LISTENING

Canadian International Conference on Global Studies 2015 (CGS 2015)

CREATING AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY INDEX: THE CASE OF RICE FARMERS’ IN MADA, MALAYSIA

Presented By:

Ajidasile Oluwagbemisola Hannah

Food

Ajidasile hannah canadian international conference slide