Preliminary Study on the Relationship between Location, Infrastructure, and Transportation of Productive Malaysia Cocoa Farmers (PMCF) towards Work Performances in Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysian cocoa production relied on cocoa farmers since 2006 because they were the major holder (81.4%) of the cocoa cultivation area. As for Sarawak, 100% of cocoa production was from cocoa farmers. Sarawak used to produce 21,200 metric tons of dried cocoa beans in 1990. The government also has spent more on training and fertilizer for cocoa farmers to increase PMCF productivity. However, the production keeps gradually decreasing yearly. In 2021, Sarawak only produced 59 metric tons of dried cocoa beans and the productivity decreased by 10% to 0.19 metric/ton/ha/year compared to 2019 productivity (MCB, 2022). In order to strategies the long-term improvement of cocoa production, this study aims to define the relationship between location, infrastructure, and transportation toward the work performance of Sarawak PMCF. Driven by Iceberg Model, the objectives of this preliminary study are to determine i) the location, infrastructure, and transportation towards work performance levels ii) the relationship between location, infrastructure, and transportation with work performance iii) the most factors (IVs) that contribute more toward work performances. A total number of 35 respondents were involved in this purposive data collection which is only 30% of the sample population of the preliminary study which was 105 PMCF. The sample procedure used the approach of random sampling technique. These 35 respondents were selected involving 3.6% of respondents for each zone population of Sarawak rural areas namely the Northern, Middle, and Southern Coastal Zone. The data was r by IBM SPSS version 25.0. The data were tested by using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and then analyzed by descriptive, correlation, and regression analysis to answer all objectives. The study found all the variables showed moderate-level indicators. The variables that showed moderate and positive correlation were location and infrastructure. In contrast, location is the most contributing factor to the work performance of PMCF in Sarawak.