The Development of Farm Management Information System for Smallholder Farmers in Malaysia

This paper introduces the process of developing web application of farm management information system (FMIS) for smallholder farmers in Malaysia by using rapid application development (RAD) prototyping methodology in information system research design. The web application requirement determined through extraction process using physical data-driven design system from Malaysia Good Agriculture Practise (MyGAP) physical forms. Additionally, the functions and features of the system were determined through several questionnaires which were distributed to 209 smallholder farmers located in Taman Kekal Pengeluaran Makanan (TKPM) in Selangor. Selangor agricultural area together with smallholders farmers were chosen as respondent because Selangor is the highest internet penetration state in Malaysia. Subsequently, the design and analysis of FMIS are constructed by us including the database design, data flow design, system flow design and software development which was validated by two other experienced system analysts. The software development process were using PHP web development tool called Scriptcase version 8 which were taking less than 2 months to be completed. Furthermore, we also made a comparative study of an existing system available in the market to give additional competitive value to the new development of FMIS in Malaysia. The final developed FMIS is accessible through the official MyAgris website.