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MULTIPLE MODERNITIES: GLOBALIZATION IN ASIAN CONTEXT3emerged, causing productivity in many countriesincluding Malaysia, to rise. Although the greenrevolution has evolved around the world, a typicalpaddy farm household in Malaysia has retained itssmallness and on-farm activities continue to beindividually managed at the household level.Nevertheless, as an institution of economic developmentand progress, paddy farm management haschanged and is influenced by changes in the externalenvironment such as the economy, government policy,technological progress and advancements in themanufacturing sector that had transformed themapping of regional society and nature. While farmhouseholds in paddy growing areas were affected bythe external environment to a large extent, changes inthe internal environment such as in farm management,like the use of farming technology and farm inputs,may have had an impact on farm household incomes asa whole.In the 1980s, the manufacturing sector started tocreate economic imbalance between the agriculturaland the manufacturing sectors more quickly thangenerally expected in Malaysia. As a result, the youngerfarmers became part-time farmers, working in the offfarmsector resulting from rapid industrialization.Since then, the rice farming sector began to face seriousproblems such as a dwindling labor force, more idlelands, and increasing competition for land. The firstNAP was reviewed earlier than originally planned andthe second NAP (2NAP1992-1997) was introduced.Although the government proposed the developmentand modernization of the rural areas in an effort toretain the labor force in the small holders sector, thewage difference between the manufacturing andagricultural sectors diminished the attraction of theagricultural sector for domestic labor. The secondNAP addressed productivity, efficiency andcompetitiveness issues in the context of sustainabledevelopment and linkages with other sectors of theeconomy.Until the Ninth Malaysian Plan (9MP:2006-2010),Malaysian policies set their sights lower and lower so asto attain the other side of the policy objective. In 1970,self-sufficiency in rice production was 78%, and duringthe period covered by the Second Malaysian Plan(1970-1975), the Government upheld the target of90% to 100% self-sufficiency in the rice sector. As aresult of government’s giving high priority to the ricesector, it attained 92% self-sufficiency in 1980 (TMP,277). In contrast, from the 1990s up to the 2000s, thedesired target declined from 70% to 65%, which wascompetitive enough with the international market. AsFujimoto (1991) pointed out, self-sufficiency wasdetermined by two different factors: the World Bankrecommendation to abandon the self-sufficiencypolicy, and the importance of the rice sector tonational food security. While ensuring self-sufficiencyin pursuit of national food security, the target level forself-sufficiency was raised to 65% in terms of tomaintain the competitive strength of other crops.However, the government needed to exertconsiderable effort in dealing with the issuesconfronting rice farmers. The rice policy came outwith support measures through the Malaysian Plansand National Agricultural Policies, as follows: theprovision and improvement of irrigation facilities forraising productivity, and the Guaranteed MinimumPrice and the Urea Subsidy Scheme in support of farmincome in the uncompetitive rice sector. TheMalaysian government has been implementing aprotective policy for the rice sector through outputprice subsidies since 1973. The fertilizer subsidy wasfirst introduced in the early 1950s with the objective ofencouraging farmers to use fertilizer, hencedemonstrating the higher pay-off from using adequatefertilizer, both in terms of paddy output and income(Ahmad and Tawang 1999).In conventional policymaking in developing countries,the existence of a stable food supply has generally beenassociated with agricultural development. In order todevelop the rural sector, strategies need to targetsustainable agricultural production mainly (JICA2004). This is because agriculture is the main sectorand its development can play an important role in theeconomic development of a whole country. In mostSoutheast Asian countries, agriculture is the keyindustry, in which enormous labor, land and otherresources are utilized even though agriculturalproductivity in the sector is still low (Nakano 1977).Using the case of Northern Thailand, Rigg andNattapoolwat (2001) showed how changes in the ruraleconomic structure and in rice farming villages tend totake on patterns different from the agrarian pattern.Rigg (1997) argued that the growing importance ofnon-farming pursuits among the young and femaleemployees could cause permanent change in the ruraleconomy. This process of change illustrates thevulnerability of agriculture to macro-economicchanges and the subsequent transformation of people’slivelihood. This transition was labeled “de-agrarianization”in a case study conducted in Sub-SaharanAfrica (Bryson 1997).The Work of the 2010/2011 API Fellows