Abstract
The purpose of rural development in West Malaysia is to increase agricultural productivity, and consequently farm income, through the introduction of modern farming methods and institutions in the rural sector. It is hoped that a commercially oriented farming population would emerge to replace what is usually viewed as a more traditional and backward agricultural sector.1 Hence, through the years there has been an increasing penetration of capital in the rural areas, subsequently transforming the social organization of production. This chapter will discuss the changes, particularly in the realm of gender relations and labour utilization patterns in rice cultivation in a West Malaysia village.
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Notes
Lyda Reys, ‘Changing Labour Patterns of Women in Rice Farm Households: A Rainfed Rice Village, Iloilo Province, Philippines’, in Women in Rice Farming (International Rice Research Institute, Philippines, 1985).
The study by Reiko Ohki notes that the increased role of women in padi cultivation has led to their increased access to farm machinery. As early as 1977, 53 per cent of 4,628 farm women sampled could operate a variety of agricultural machinery ranging from tractors to combines. Refer to Reiko Ohki (1985), ‘Women Labour and the Technological Development of Rice Cultivation in Japan’, in Women in Rice Farming.
Bina Agarwal, ‘Women and Technological Change in Agriculture: The Asian and African Experience’, in Iftikar Ahmed (ed.), Technology and Rural Women: Conceptual and Empirical Issues (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1985), p. 113.
See articles entitled ‘Gender and the Division of Labour: A Case Study’, in Hing Ai Yun and R. Talib (eds), Women and Employment in Malaysia (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 1985); and ‘Agricultural Modernization and Gender Differentiation in a Rural Malay community 1983–1987’, in Cecilia Ng (ed.), Technology and Gender (Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, Serdang, 1987).
L. J. Fredericks, ‘Patterns of Labour Utilization and Income Distribution in Rice Double Cropping System: Policy Implications’, Occasional Papers on Malaysian Socio-Economic Affairs, No. 8 (Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, 1977).
Abdul Halim Taib, ‘Tanjong Karang Survey — Phase II: Socio-economic Survey of Sawah Sempadan, a Study of Blocks E, Q, S, W’, Graduation Exercise, University of Malaya, 1963. What was interesting was that Malay and Chinese farmers worked together in the early stages. It was only later that Sawah Sempadan was allocated to the Malays, and another area, Sekinchan, to the Chinese farmers.
‘Brief Information on the Northwest Selangor Integrated Agricultural Development Project’, Pejabat Pengarah Projek Barat Laut Selangor (July 1986).
Henry Cleaver, ‘The Contradictions of the Green Revolution’, Monthly Review, vol. 24, no. 2 (1972).
Studies of rural women in Africa point to their important contribution in agricultural production and processing. Nearer to home, rice cultivation in the state of Kelantan is also predominantly a female responsibility. What these two studies have in common is the vacuum created by the emigration of male labour to mines (in Africa) and factories (in Malaysia) to seek to alleviate their poverty-stricken conditions. For further details see Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, Women of Africa (Zed Press, London, 1983), and Janet Rodenburg, Women and Padi Farming: Sociological Study of a Village in the Kemubu Scheme (University of Amsterdam, 1983).
This point is also brought up by Hart in the Muda region about the nature of labour circulation. However, she also cautions that women’s major role in farm management does not necessarily ensure their control over farm income, since by returning to the village during harvest time men take charge of the marketing and proceeds of the crop: Gillian Hart, ‘The Mechanization of Malaysian Rice Production: Will Petty Producers Survive?’, Working Paper, World Employment Programme Research, International Labour Office, Geneva, 1987.
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© 1999 Cecilia Ng
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Ng, C. (1999). Malay Women and Rice Production in West Malaysia. In: Positioning Women in Malaysia. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27420-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27420-8_4
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