Independent oil palm smallholder’s perception towards biofertilizers in Malaysia / Nurul Fatin Ismail

Oil palm is one of the major crops planted in Malaysia. Smallholders are key agents for advanced country wide palm oil yields and development of the industry. For ultimate plant increase, nutrients need to be available in sufficient and balanced portions (Mohammadi and Sohrabi, 2012). Bio fertilizers are important additives of included nutrients control. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between independent variables and oil palm smallholder’s perception towards bio fertilizers and to determine the most dominant factor that influence oil palm smallholder’s perception towards bio fertilizers. Survey method was used for data collection. This study involves 66 respondents which is independent smallholders that lived at Felda Bukit Waha, Johor. Statistical 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 0.868 indicates the value was acceptable which means factor was appropriate for the data. Factor analysis result shows that benefits factor was the dominant attribute which represented by three factors that eigenvalues more than 1, first factor is benefit. Second factor is level of knowledge and third factor is cost of bio fertilizer. It was 66.037% of total variance explained by factors. Therefore, it can be concluded that was a significant relationship between factors and perception of oil palm independent smallholders towards bio fertilizer. As a recommendation, independent smallholders should be actively involved in program that encouraged them to used bio fertilizer for environmental sake in the future. From this study I obtained positive perception from independent smallholders.