Paddy and rice industry in Malaysia is a strategic industry as it provides the main source of food and livelihood for about 206 400 small scale farmers. Various government programs have been implemented to improve the paddy farmers’ living standards through income improvement. However, the farmers’ livelihood in terms of income and living standard has not improved significantly. This situation is possibility due to farmers’ objective in farming differs from the income maximization goal of the government’s programs. This factor has led to the assumption that goals other than profit maximization compete strongly in farmer’s decision making. The main objective of this study is to investigate the farmers’ multiple goals in paddy production. The study was conducted in the region of Kemubu Agricultural Development Authority (KADA) granary area involving 325 respondents. The Simple Ranking Procedure was used to rank the importance of goals when engaging themselves in farming. Analytic Hierarchy Process was employed to obtain a ratio scale of importance for the multiple goals. Results from the Simple Ranking Procedure (SRP) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) show that “Welfare of the Family” and “Have Time for Religious Activities” is the most important goals for farmers when engaging in paddy farming activities, respectively. This shows that farmers’ preference for being farmer is to maximize utility rather than maximizing profit and income.
