International Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Plantation, Vol. 4 (Dec.) ISSN 2462-1757 2016 107 ETHNICITY, ACCOUNTING RECORD AND THE PRODUCTIVITY OF MALAYSIAN PADDY FARMERS Hasri Mustafa, Department of Accounting and Finance, UPM, Serdang, Selangor Email: hasyie@upm.edu.my Jalila Johari Department of Accounting and Finance, UPM, Serdang, Selangor Email: jjohari@upm.edu.my Norlida Mahussin Faculty of Science and Techniology, USIM, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan Email: norlida@usim.edu.my ABSTRACT The study examines the accounting record practices for in Kedah and Perlis. The results found that different ethnicity demonstrates different point of view about the practicing of accounting record among farmers. The findings expose that paddy is still the product of instinct not of intelligence. Farmers are far unaware a potential progression of accounting to paddy. Further analysis focuses on activities in paddy paddock preparation, paddy seeds plantation, paddy growing and caring, paddy harvesting time and paddy delivery. Fixed assets, subsidies, incomes, rents, operations and wages costs are scrutinized. The study suggests that efforts must be made to keep the three costs for wages, rents and operations to a minimum. Keywords: paddy, bookkeeping, productivity, Malaysia INTRODUCTION In tropical countries such as Malaysia, rice is one of the major staple foods and the paddy rice fields’ account for more tha n 20% of food crops. Agriculture remains an important sector of Malaysia’s economy, contributing 12 per cent to the national GDP and produces 2.645 million tonnes per year (Department od Statistics, 2014). Rice production is particlularly involves stages from cultivation to harvesting the paddy and being the consumables rice. In a recent article, Masso and Man (2016) respond rice production in Malaysia is still at insufficient level, often involves traditional farming and the work force is limited in skill and expertise. In paddy literature, there are a lot of discussions about changing technique to improve production. These include machine-scheduling for rice production (Deris and Ohta, 1990), irrigation scheme (Johnson, 2000; Alam et al., 2012) and the introduction of varieties of rices in the market such as MR 219, MR 220, and MR 253 (Azman at al., 2014; Oladosu et al., 2014). The current study aims to investigate accounting record and link with the production outcome of paddy farmers. In this paper, we discuss this productivity issue on paddy from a particular enquiry on the practices of accounting record based on ethnic categories. In particular, we seek to understand whether accounting record could help to throw light on our paddy processes and the formula how to achieve a more productivity paddy farmer society in this population-based multi ethnic country. This investigation is expected to introduce on the practical level of accounting record in paddy field lead to find responses could accounting record become a source of productivity for paddy farmers and thus improving their income. The paper is outlined in the remaining six main sections. The following section informs the scope of the research. The details a demographic data for respondent farmers is presented. This includes all the three main ethnic groups; Malays, Chinese and Indians. The second section provides an exploratory analysis of farmers’ application on accounting record from the case research. It discusses the relationship between accounting record and paddy productivity. The third section advances the discussion with issues and challenges faced by the farmers. The final section ends with the conclusions and the contribution of the paper to accounting in paddy cultivation literature. RESEARCH SCOPE This study examines Kedah and Perlis as these two were the earliest paddy cultivation in Malaysia. Kedah is the largest state by land area and 8 th most populated state in Malaysia, with total land area of 9,425 km2 and a population of 2.10 million in 2015 1 . As the “rice bowl” of Malaysia (Liu, 2006; Almayahi et al., 2012), Kedah is accounted for one third of Malaysia’s total 1 2012 - 2015: Population Estimates based on the adjusted Population and Housing Census of Malaysia 2010, Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2016.