Quantitative Analysis

Traditionally, agriculture -based activity is the main sector of rural economy and rural
development, as almost three quarter of Malaysian who lived in the rural area are involved in
it. The agriculture-based activity comprise of rubber, palm oil, and coconut, paddy, fisherman
and mixed farmer. Non-agricultural activities or semi industrial urban based activity such as
mining, manufacturing, construction and transport trade services.

In term of distribution of the rural population in Malaysia has witnessed steady decline
from 88 per cent in 1950 to 29 per in 2010. The trend will continue and will be expected that
the rural population of Malaysia will experience a decline up to 12 per cent in the year 2050.
The decline in the share of rural population from the total despite the high birth rate in this
sector was due to the massive out-migration to the manufacturing sectors which were mainly
located in the urban areas, particularly in the post 1970 period.

Malaysian-urban vs rural
88 84 85
81 83
73 77
71
66 62
51
49
34 38
27 29
23 19
16 15 17
12

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Rural Urban

Source: Department of Statistics Malaysia. Cencus data 1970, 1980, 1991, 2000, 2010

As stated earlier, poverty is major issue in rural sector. This is proved by table 1 and 2.
The tables provided the following observation, firstly, at nationwide level, there is a very drastic
decline on the incidence of poverty, almost half in 1970 to about 9 per cent in 1995. Regionally,
sabah (34 %) and serawak (19%) have the highest poverty level compared to peninsular
Malaysia (15%). Secondly, the incidence of poverty in rural sector relatively high compare to the
urban sector. The factors contributed to the severe poverty problem are vary from social to
economic. Hence, rural development to tackle poverty problem need a multi aspect point of
view which include agricultural development, rural industrialisation, infrastructural
development and welfare programmes.

Table 1: Poverty and Number of Poor Region Table 2 : Malaysia Incidence Povert
1995-2000
1985-1990

In term of agricultural development, federal government showed their seriousness by

aggressively expanding and opening land for agriculture with the objective to modernize the
agricultural sector, erase poverty and to overcome the unemployment problems. The below
table shows the progress in new land development under various programmes and agency
between 1965-1995 with total up to 1.9 mn ha of land were developed under various
programmes.

In term of rural industrialization and infrastructure, the federal government with a view
of promoting and enhancing rural industrialisation, significant open area assets have been
reserved to give, among others, advances and concedes, consultancy and augmentation
administrations, entrepreneurial improvement, preparing, framework offices and tax cuts (6th
Malaysia Plan 1991-95). Table underneath demonstrates the assignments for modern
improvement for the 6th Malaysia Plan. These would in most case join spending portions
coordinated at rural industrialisation and businesses. It might be seen that the assignment for
rural businesses has been expanded, from RM 77.4 in the Fifth Malaysia Plan 1986-1990 to RM
162.3 in the 6th Malaysia Plan 1991-95.

With all the budget allocation and the total opening land that are undertaken by federal
government The result of the agricultural and rural programmes show positive outcome with
reduction in the poverty incidence in the rural sector from almost 60% in the 1970s to about
15% in 1995.
Wordpresscom. (2018). Wordpresscom. Retrieved 29 July, 2018, from
https://khairulhkamarudin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/visit-from-bangladesh.pdf

Upmedumy. (2018). Upmedumy. Retrieved 29 July, 2018, from

http://econ.upm.edu.my/~fatimah/rural.pdf