International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—In Malaysia, conventional rice farming is the predominant method of rice cultivation with attendant problems like the harmful effects of the utilisation of synthetic pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. Thus, conventional rice farming was compared to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method, a variant of agroecological rice farming, in Kampung Klerek, Bachok District, and Kelantan. It must be noted that the agroecological rice farming method is the farmer’s maiden attempt. Agroecological rice farming is a much more environmentally friendly approach. The aim of this paper is to compare conventional rice farming vis-à-vis agroecological rice farming from a financial perspective. Comparative Cost Benefit Analysis has been adopted to determine which the better alternative is. However, the results go beyond financial consideration as conventional rice farming is chemically driven whereas agroecological rice farming is grounded on environmentalism. The results indicated that agroecological rice farming is a better financial alternative with higher revenue and lower cost of production. The higher revenue is due to higher production yield whereas the lower cost of production is due to contributory factors like lower labour cost, lower seed utilisation and ancillary cost, zero cost for synthetic fertilisers and lower fuel and ancillary cost for machinery despite higher organic fertiliser cost. Thus, on a long-term basis, with the effect of the learning and experience curve, the cost of production can be lowered further. Moreover, the higher rice yield, less seed wastage, utilisation of organic fertilisers, organic pesticides and natural pest control methods are in sync with good environmental practices.

Index Terms—Agroecological rice farming, comparative cost-benefit analysis, conventional rice farming, and fertilisers.

The authors are with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia (corresponding author: Ah Choy Er; email: eveer@ukm.edu.my, ha@ukm.edu.my, azima@ukm.edu.my).

[PDF]

Cite: Ah Choy Er, Habibah Ahmad, and Azima Abdul Manaf, "Comparative Cost Benefit Analysis of Conventional Farming and Agroecological Farming for Paddy Cultivation in Bachok, Kelantan," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 181-187, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).