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Awareness of the complexity in the global food chain, combined with several major halal food issues and scandals, are an impetus for major changes in the halal food control system in Malaysia. Malaysia holds a special position in the global halal market as the first country that assigns a government agency to regulate its halal matters and certification. This article describes and discusses the system for halal food control in Malaysia as framed by five important components for an effective national food control system: halal food legislation; halal food management control; inspection; laboratory; and education, communication, and training. Significant improvement has been made on the system; however, a few issues and challenges persist.

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Problem statement: Developing agriculture by disseminating the right information to the right groups has proven to be an effective strategy. In Malaysia, there are a number of sources; either mass media or personal sources that disseminate the agriculture information. The rural community, a group which are highly related to agriculture certainly have a pivotal need for agriculture information. Besides the existence of numerous sources of agriculture information, do the rural community especially those who living along Pahang and Muar Rivers have received adequate agriculture information from the mass media and interpersonal sources? This study would provide the answer for the query. Approach: This is a quantitative study, where a developed questionnaire was employed to gain the data needed. Through a simple random sampling, 900 respondents were selected. The respondents selected were among the villagers that live along Pahang and Muar Rivers. Descriptive and inferential analyses were employed to achieve the objectives determined. Results: Based on the results, rural community living along Pahang and Muar rivers do receive agriculture information at a high level from television, newspaper, family members, friends and village leaders and village administration members. Further analysis employed has proven that there is significant difference in receiving the agriculture information from mass media and interpersonal sources among rural communities in the three districts studied. Conclusion/Recommendation: It is recommended that brochures/pamphlets that contain information on the list of agriculture programs available on television, radio, newspaper and internet can be produced by the concern parties and distributed to the rural people. The concern parties in agricultural delivery system are recommended to employ the media that are pertinent in fulfilling rural community needs.

a b s t r a c tCharcoal production with higher heating value (HHV) requires high capital investment and high energy requirement for large scale production. In this study, charcoal production under self-sustained carbonization from oil palm biomass was proposed and tested at pilot scale, whereby temperature and exhaust gas flow rate were monitored but not controlled. This proposed system under self-sustained carbonization, whereby oil palm biomass is combusted to provide the heat for carbonization in inadequate oxygen is preferable to the industry due to its simplicity, ease of operation and low energy requirement. Moreover, the gaseous emissions are below the permitted level set by the environmental authorities. The considerable HHV obtained was between 23 and 25 MJ/kg with low gaseous emissions. The results obtained are acceptable and comparable to other studies on oil palm biomass conducted under controlled conditions with electrical heating elements.