Market Survey, Perception and Acceptance of Farmers on SRI-Tray Technology for Rice Farming

Abstract

Farm technology plays a crucial role in improving the farming activities for developing countries. Thus, organic-based products are in increasing demand from consumers that concerned about the safety and healthy food. This implies organic-based rice farming with technology is a new way of performing a farm-based operation. This study would like to get insight and responses from rice farmers regarding the current issues and problems of the rice nursery management and nursery planting tray operation. Thus, the study would like to investigate rice farmers’ perception and acceptance towards a new rice nursery planting tray that is SRI-Tray within Malaysia and other nearby countries in Southeast Asia. The respondents of the study are 87 farmers and online in-depth interviews are carried out to obtain farmers’ responses towards current rice nursery management and SRI-Tray technology. The results from the content analysis reveal factors such as technology perceived benefits, solving the main problems, trialability, and pricing wise are among factors that explain the farmers’ perception and acceptance towards new technology for adoption within their farming activities.