Oil palm smallholder farmers are among the key players and are mostly affected by social challenges to the sustainability of the oil palm sector in Malaysia. Previous literature reviews showed a lack of social studies compared to studies of the economy and environment regarding the sustainability of the oil palm industry. Therefore, a systematic literature review focused on the context of social issues and challenges reported by Malaysian oil palm smallholder farmers is presented. The PRISMA standard is applied as the foundation for the systematic literature review writing procedure. A total of 12 papers were chosen out of 340 from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. They covered three themes, including (i) attitudes, (ii) education, and (iii) the welfare of oil palm smallholder farmers. This systematic literature review has revealed that the social issues and challenges are closely related to the respondents’ demographics, such as the study location, the level of education, and the size of the plantations managed by smallholder farmers. This paper provides an up-to-date review of the social issues and challenges that oil palm smallholder farmers in Malaysia have encountered, as well as insights into future research on critical societal issues and challenges that demand attention and efforts towards improvement.

The demand for Palm oil has increasing over the several decades and it has led to criticisms and question about sustainability on biodiversity loss, water pollution and deforestation. This study aims to explore the sustainability of oil palm smallholders in Malaysia based on environmental, social and economic perspectives. The aim of the study is to examine the sustainability of smallholding scheme in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 50 smallholders in Terengganu state under the Federal Land Development Authority of Malaysia (FELDA). It’s revealed that most of the smallholders have sufficient knowledge of sustainability consistent with Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and other local agricultural laws practices. The study also indicates that on social aspect, the smallholders have better quality of life through the provision of basic facilities. The study concludes that there is a high degree of sustainability amongst oil palm smallholders under the management of FELDA. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s4p482

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.

Entrepreneurship and formation of new businesses are important in creating and maintaining a competitive economy. The main purpose of this research is to examine the demographic and business profile of the ecotourism operators and identify the relationship that takes place between the 4P marketing strategy (product, prices, promotion and places) with market competitiveness in terms of cost control, competitive challenges, quality of service, tourist arrival statistics and agency’s role. This research will identify the aspects in the 4P marketing strategy that will have impact on the competitiveness of the market. This study was carried out in Kuching, Sarawak; however, only 4 areas of ecotourism around Kuching were selected which are Waterfront Kuching, Sarawak Cultural Village, Bukit Santubong, and Damai Beach Resort. The respondents for this study were ecotourism operators, and a total of 86 operators were involved in this research. The processed data were analysed using Spearman correlation analysis and cross tab. Results of the study showed that the majority of the ecotourism operators are women and the type of business conducted is service oriented. The aspects of promotion, product, price and place marketing have influenced the competitiveness of the ecotourism market in Kuching, Sarawak. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s3p39

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