The Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Extension Education among the FOA Members in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to assess the state and effectiveness of informal entrepreneurship extension education among Malaysian farmers especially the members of Farmers' Organization Authority (FOA). The development of an agri-entrepreneurship, both concept and activity, has been growing in importance in Malaysia. The government of Malaysia has established few agencies within the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry (MOA) such as FOA to provide extension on technical and motivational training to individual farmers to become agri-entrepreneurs. This is in tandem with Ministry motto of ＂agriculture is business＂. Such training it is hoped to strengthen capacity building among the farmers and to have a sustainable growth in the agribusiness sector. Despite the recognition of the importance of entrepreneurship in the knowledge economy, the effectiveness of its informal entrepreneurial extension education remains debatable. Four hundred farmers who are members of FOA were interviewed with a structured questionnaire to gather information on their social attitude towards the effectiveness of the informal entrepreneurship education on their capacity building as agri-entrepreneur. The results shows that informal entrepreneurship education is not able to provide the entrepreneurship skills acquisition as expected. The findings also indicate that the level of understanding on ＂what is entrepreneurship＂ is still low among the FOA members. In this regard, efforts should be intensified to improve informal agri-entrepreneurial courses and training, and extension on developing entrepreneurial skill among the farmers. Thus extension and training courses not only apply the modern technologies to the agriculture but also the fundamental changes in farmers' attitude towards agriculture is a business.

並列關鍵字

Agri-entrepreneurial ； attitude ； farmers ； informal training ； perception

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