Empowerment of the Bidayuh rural community oil palm smallholders: A case study in Serian district, Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

Empowerment exists and naturalized into the human self as an impetus to improve themselves through potential, power growth and authority. The success of empowerment will improve the competitiveness and reduce the level of dependency of the communities and individuals towards the government and the country. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine the role of MPOB (Malaysian Palm Oil Board) as the agency responsible for the development of rural Bidayuh community empowerment and types of empowerment that have resulted in the Bidayuh rural community. This study uses the phenomenological research paradigm that focuses on understanding and narrations of the Bidayuh smallholders' rural community in the District of Serian, Sarawak on how their empowerment were resulted. The sample was selected using the non-probability sampling that is the purposive sampling and the snowball sampling. A total of 16 informants were selected in this study to be interviewed in-depth. The study found that the role of MPOB consists of information sharing on oil palm cultivation, technical assistance, advisory services and expertise, providing assistance with seeds, fertilizers and pesticides as well as marketing. The type of empowerment that has been built consists of the individual empowerment, technical, communication and marketing of the oil palm products. In conclusion, MPOB is only instrumental as an agent in the Bidayuh community empowerment in a structure, and this structure is controlled by the agency through a top-down approach.