Emergence to Develop an Appraisal System for Agricultural Practices in Malaysia

Abstract

This study is an effort to justify an emergence to develop an appraisal system for agricultural practices in Malaysia. The idea has come from the fact that although the policies for promoting Malaysia's agriculture sector towards sustainability were endorsed in 1998, but some agricultural practices in the country are found to be connected with environmental problems. Advanced quantitative analytical tools such as stationary tests and least squares estimations have been employed to attain the study objective and justify our arguments. The results, however, reveal that agricultural practices in Malaysia have been connected, to some extent, with environmental problems in the country. An increase in fertilizer consumption has been found to be positively connected with both agricultural production index and food production index for the country. The study also found that the contribution of Malaysian agriculture in terms of its value added to the national economy is certainly creditable, but this could have been connected with environmental problems on a greater scale. The results further reveal that an increase in the area of arable and permanent crops has also been associated with higher agricultural production index and food production index for the country. While most agricultural practices in Malaysia are observed to have been generally compatible with the standards of sustainable agriculture, an emergence still arises for the country to develop an appraisal system for monitoring its current agricultural practices. It is expected that the development of such an appraisal system will enable Malaysia to transform its agriculture into sustainable in which agricultural resources will not be exploited and environmental degradation will be absent.