Malaysian consumer behaviours towards purchasing organic rice / Muhamad Faizuin Mohamad Rosli

Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima. In Malaysia, Rice is an important industrial crop with global significance because rice provides essential nutrients for the body. Due to awareness and interest about chemical contamination in rice production that harms the ecosystem and the environment along with the health of producers and consumers, organic rice cultivation has become an option for people who care for their health and the environment. This study has been conducted to investigate the effects of psychological factor and social factor on the Malaysians’ consumer behaviour towards purchasing the organic rice. Survey method was used for data collection. The questionnaires have been distributed to 100 respondent which 51 female and 49 male. Statiscal for Science Computer Software (SPSS) were used to analyze result based on descriptive analysis and factor analysis. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) was 0.888 indicated the value was acceptable which means factor analysis was appropriate for the data. Factor analysis result shows that psychological factor was the dominant attribute which represented by two factors that eigenvalues more than 1, factor 1 is psychological factor and factor 2 is social factor. It was about 66.77% of the total variance explained by the factors. Therefore, it can be concluded that was a significant relationship between factor and behaviour of Malaysian consumer towards purchasing organic rice. As a conclusion, the awareness and knowledge of organic rice, some respondents are aware and decide to buy it, while some have knowledge about organic rice but did not buy it for daily use. For those who have knowledge on organic rice and bought it, they evaluate their options for the use of organic rice for their own health benefit and for the environmental concern.