No abstract

To provide good leadership it is necessary for individuals and groups to help bring a rural community to action. As the rural leaders play a function in important programs in agricultural extension. However, The study was conducted to determine the maturity of rural leaders based on maturity model theory towards agricultural technologies In Malaysia Paddy Farming, and explore the relationship between the selected characteristics of the respondents. Data were collected through personal interview from 260 randomly selected in muda agriculture development authority MADA area. A five point Likert scale was used to determine the maturity of rural leaders ranged from 1 = never to 5= always.The majority (63.1%) of the respondents had a moderate level of maturity. The correlation analysis between socio-demographic characteristics and maturity level show that there is a positive and significant relationship between variables age and years of experience in paddy farming, at 0.05 level of significance.

Rice production in MADA is currently reaching an average of four to five tons per hectare. This figure is way better than one or two decades ago. Feder et al. (2010)

Agriculture has a vital role in our livelihood and economic development unlike any other economic activity. Malaysia's leading agricultural yields are in rice, fruit and vegetables. The growing of rice takes up the biggest area, comprising 670,000 ha in 2010 (Dorward, Poole et al. 2003). There are 0.3 million paddy farmers in Malaysia, 40% of which are full-time, and 65% of total paddy farms are below one hectare in area (Alam, Siwar et al. 2010