Bias towards the large farm subsector in agricultural research. The case of Malaysian rubber.

The economic effects of historical research bias towards the estate subsector of the Malaysian rubber industry are examined. This bias may be expected to have induced technologies using factors appropriate to the relative input prices and other characteristics of estates. It may thus have benefitted them more than the other major subsector of smallholdings, which has had higher prices of capital. Factor prices to estates and smallholdings seem likely to converge in the increasingly commercialized Malaysian economy, and in these circumstances the earlier bias will no longer be a problem. The main indication for current technology policy is for help to ease the adjustment of smallholdings to emerging conditions. Thus in working along the innovation possibility curve, researchers should be constrained to provide somewhat more for substitution between labour and capital. At the field level extension services should be improved, so that small farmers can better handle the greater management requirements of new techniques.-from Authors