The Conversion of Agricultural Paddy Land and the Impact to the Paddy Production

Generally, the rapid urbanization process of an area would affect the pattern of land use. This is mostly influenced by the economic factor that strongly focuses on the highest return that can be derived from the land. In Alor Setar, the agricultural sector, which was a core economic previously, now has moved towards more productive sectors. This has raised the number of converted agricultural land, in case to fulfill the demand from the housing, commercial, infrastructure and industrial sectors. This study is focused on the conversion of paddy land, which has been developed with various types of building. Based on the qualitative and quantitative methods, it is found that a lot of housing projects are being carried out on the paddy land. This research also finds that the conversion activities do make an impact to the paddy production. On the other hand, it is not such a major issue since Alor Setar has already gazetted for the future development even though those paddy lands are located within the rice bowl area of Malaysia. Hence, the conversion of paddy land, especially in other rice bowl area needs to be perpetually controlled so that the importance of paddy sector can fulfill the country's needs.