Knowledge Transfer among Paddy Farmers in Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

The Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) plays a vital role in ensuring that the agricultural technology developed is relevant to the needs of the industry and is linked with the target group. Similarly, the Department of Agriculture (DOA) provides extension services in the form of advisory, consultative, and technical support services to entrepreneurs, private companies and farmers’ groups. In spite of MARDI’s and DOA’s function in assisting farmers, they do not seem to be making full use of MARDI’s and DOA’s findings. A missing gap was found among knowledge developers, extension officers and knowledge adopters. This research is conducted in order to explore and discover various factors that affect knowledge transfer from provider to farmers. There are four objectives in the study: (1) to discover and describe the factors contributing to success in knowledge transfer among paddy farmers in Selangor; (2) to discover the factors contributing to failure in knowledge transfer; (3) to discover the farmer’s information needs, information sources and information channels in seeking and distributing information; and finally, (4) to describe the profiles of knowledge adopters.

Keywords: Knowledge transfer, paddy farmers, success, failure, information needs, information sources, information channel