Using a participatory system dynamics modelling approach to inform the management of Malaysian rubber production

Abstract

CONTEXTIncreasing rubber price volatility has adversely affected smallholders – Malaysia's primary rubber producers' livelihood. This, in turn, has caused them to abandon rubber farming and led to the decline of Malaysian rubber production over the last few decades. In this paper, a rubber production model was developed using a participatory system dynamics modelling approach, involving multiple key rubber industry stakeholders. OBJECTIVEThe study's objectives include: 1) to use the developed rubber production model to quantitatively assess the impact of interactions between key components of the rubber production system at the farm, national, and global levels on rubber production; and 2) to test the effectiveness of existing and proposed plausible policy and management scenarios to improve rubber production. METHODSWe conducted structural, behavioural patterns, and statistical tests to evaluate and validate the performance of the developed model. We simulated key variables including smallholder and national productions, and farm-gate, national and global prices for a 30-year period. The model is set-up with time unit of years and time step of 0.25 years, using the Stella Architect software. Our analysis showed that the simulated outputs agreed well with the observed behaviour of the system. A sensitivity analysis indicated the model is reliable and robust to uncertainties in the major parameters. Five policy scenarios: (1) business as usual; (2) farm-level focused; (3) national-level focused; (4) global-level focused; and (5) balanced were simulated to assess their impact on smallholder and national production, smallholder net revenue, and global, national and farm-gate rubber prices. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSThe results showed that the farm-level focused and balanced scenarios would significantly improve and double smallholder and Malaysian rubber production. Based on the scenarios analyses, Malaysian rubber production can be improved by (1) tightening rubber export restrictions at the global level; (2) increasing domestic rubber consumption and reducing rubber imports at the national level; (3) increasing rubber production incentive; (4) improving collaboration between agencies and increasing resources available to extension and enforcement agents, and rubber production incentive campaigns; and (5) finding additional income, through intercropping at the farm level for example. SIGNIFICANCEThe model is flexible, and other rubber producing countries with similar features and environmental and socioeconomic conditions can adapt the system dynamics simulation model to understand and evaluate the impact of policies that can improve the livelihood of smallholders.