The scenario of the agricultural industry around the world is now shifting from conventional agriculture to sustainable agriculture. Good agricultural practice (GAP) has been introduced as a guide in implementing sustainable agriculture which takes into account the importance of economy, environment and society in producing quality food that is safe to eat. This study was conducted in Sekinchan, a high-yielding paddy cultivation area with the highest production per hectare in Malaysia. This study aims to evaluate MyGAP (Malaysian Good Agriculture Practice) implementation among farmers who have MyGAP certification and without MyGAP certification. In the first stage, GAP have been identified from document analysis based on the standard of GAP in Malaysia. In the second stage, fill out the checklist based on data obtained from observations and interviews with four farmers who have MyGAP certification and four farmers without MyGAP certification. The findings show that agricultural practices carried out by paddy farmers in the study area are at moderate level where only three out of four components of GAP were implemented which consist nine out of the 13 GAP elements. The contribution of this study can be used as input to stakeholders for the purpose of improving the existing MyGAP certification management procedures towards environmental friendly besides producing quality, healthy, and safe to eat food.
Good agricultural practice (MyGAP) has been introduced as a guide in implementing sustainable agriculture, which concerns the economy, environment, and society in producing high-quality food that is safe to be consumed. The number of paddy farming areas that have been certified with MyGAP is still low. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the challenges of implementing MyGAP among the paddy farmers and proposing relevant actions, using the Sekinchan paddy field as a case study. Qualitative techniques were conducted by observations in the fieldwork and the interviews with eight paddy farmers and two officers from the technical department. By using qualitative content analysis, six challenges associated with the implementation of MyGAP were identified such as (1) complexity of MyGAP certification system, (2) inadequate knowledge, (3) lack of pro-environment behaviour among paddy farmer, (4) ineffective communication, (5) lack of technology and (6) lack of monitoring and enforcement. This paper's suggested relevant recommendation to provide a platform for developing and improving policy and guidelines in MyGAP. From the findings, some recommendations are put forward in the pursuit of MyGAP in Sekinchan. The findings contributed to a better understanding of where attention should be directed, and which recommendations would better impact the implementation of MyGAP among the paddy farmers.
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