Developing agriculture in Malaysia: internet utilization among Malaysian youth agro-businessman

• Main Authors: Hassan, Md. Salleh, Mohamed Shaffril, Hayrol Azril, Abu Hassan, Musa, Alby, Jeffrey Lawrence D'Silva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Eurojournals 2009
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5621/1/European_Journal_of_Scientific_Research_11.2..pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5621/

The main objective of the study was to know the level of internet usage among Malaysian youth agro-based entrepreneurs and factors that affect it. A total of 134 respondents were involved in the study representing agro-based entrepreneurs in Peninsular Malaysia. The respondents are involved in agro-business such as food processing, plantation, animal rearing, farming, fisheries and non-food processing. Respondents were chosen based on the list of agro-based entrepreneurs provided by Department of Agriculture (DOA), Farmers Organization Authority (FOA) and Agriculture Bank of Malaysia (Agro Bank Malaysia). A survey using a questionnaire developed for the study was used to collect data. Mean,percentage, frequency and independent t-test were generated to describe the general trend of the data. Based on the mean score recorded, there was moderate usage in e-mail and website surfing while the other internet applications usage such as blog, online forum, bulletin board, yahoo messenger, mailing list and chat recorded low level of usage. ANOVA test done proved that there was significant difference in internet usage on the factors of zone where respondents lived, starting investment and income gained per year while Pearson Correlation employed indicated that there was significant and positive correlation between starting investment and internet usage.