International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

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 Volume 7, Issue 3 (March 2020), Pages: 45-54

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 Original research Paper

 Title: Diffusion of oil palm farming innovation amongst smallholders

 Author(s): Ali Salman 1, *, Suhana Saad 2, Mohd Yusof Abdullah 2, Mohd Azul Mohamad Salleh 2, M. S. Sarmila 2

 Affiliation(s):

 1Faculty of Social Sciences and Leisure Management, Taylor’s University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
 2Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia

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 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9466-1744

 Digital Object Identifier: 

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2020.03.006

 Abstract:

Palm oil is an important cash crop for Malaysia and determining the factors affecting the diffusion of this cash crop is considered a viable strategy for attracting farmers to take up palm oil farming. This study seeks to measure the influence of palm oil innovation characteristics, the level of knowledge, social system and communication channels towards acceptance of agricultural innovation among smallholder palm oil farmers. Diffusion of Innovation Theory is adopted in formulating the theoretical framework to measure how the palm oil innovation is diffused among the smallholder farming community. This study employed a quantitative approach to obtain data from smallholder farmers in an area in Sarawak, East Malaysia. A survey using a questionnaire was used to collect data from ninety-nine (99) sampled respondents representing the smallholder palm oil farmers. From the findings, only the characteristics of innovation and communication channels significantly influenced the acceptance of oil palm innovation among the farmers on the East Coast of Malaysia. However, unlike the characteristics of innovation, which positively influenced innovation acceptance, the influence of communication channels was negative. The use of communication channels, especially radio and new media for development should be geared up as an aspect of development communication. 

 © 2020 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords: Characteristics of innovation, Societal background, Communication channels, Diffusion of innovation, Palm oil farmers

 Article History: Received 22 August 2019, Received in revised form 21 December 2019, Accepted 28 December 2019

 Acknowledgment:

It is appreciated and thankful to the SK-2017-002 Research Grant, led by Professor Dr. Fuad Mat Jali, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, the National University of Malaysia for the financial support given to the high impact of a publication project. This research also funded by UKM-MPOB Endowment Chair (EP-2017-047) led by Associated Professor Dr. Suhana Saad.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

 Citation:

 Salman A, Saad S, Abdullah MY et al. (2020). Diffusion of oil palm farming innovation amongst smallholders. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 7(3): 45-54

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 Figures

 Fig. 1

 Tables

 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

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