Adoption of organic vegetable production practices in West Java and Bali, Indonesia

One of the challenges in developing organic agricultural production in Indonesia is increasing farmers' knowledge of organic farming methods to grow high quality organic products. Recognizing the need for research and development of organic agriculture, the Development of New Bio-Agents for Alternative Farming (DNBAF) project established pilot farms in West Java and Bali in 2005 in order to field test the use of bio-pesticides and compost. Since lack of extension is a constraint in developing organic agriculture in Indonesia, it is important to understand what factors determine 1) farmers' knowledge of organic farming methods, 2) their attitudes toward such methods, and 3) their adoption of the methods. The goal of this study was to determine farmers' perceptions of organic vegetable production practices including bio-pesticides and compost in West Java and Bali, Indonesia. The following hypotheses were tested in this study: (1) socio-economic variables will affect the familiarity with bio-pesticides and compost. The socio-economic variables are: respondent's location, gender, age, education level, household size, number of family laborers, farming experience, farm size, distance to the pilot farm, irrigation sources, land tenure status, net revenue of cabbage, tomato, carrot production, exposure to the pilot farm and any information source groups (media, extension, farmer and commercial groups); and (2) farmers' familiarity with the target organic vegetable practices will affect farmers' attitude toward target organic methods, and it will be possible to increase the chances that the farmer will adopt organic farming by changing his/her attitudes toward the target organic methods.;Data were collected using a mixed method: face-to-face survey and interviews with key informants. In the face-to-face survey, a total of 627 households of vegetable farmers surrounding the pilot farms in West Java and Bali constituted the population, and 210 farmers selected by a systematic random sampling method were interviewed. The study hypothesis (1) was tested by a binary logit analysis, and hypothesis (2) was tested by a path analysis. In the interviews with key informants, a snowball sampling was used to collect detailed information from persons representing the Department of Agriculture, the agricultural extension agency, and people in an organic vegetable market channel in the study sites. A total of 10 people from the three groups were interviewed by the researcher in Bahasa Indonesia.;Result of the binary logit analysis showed that the factors associated with awareness of the practices include: location, gender, educational level, distance to the pilot farms, exposure to the pilot farms, and information sources. However, results of the path analysis showed no statistically significant relationships between awareness of the practices, attitude toward the practices, and intention to adopt the practices. The results of interviews with key informants indicated that the following factors limit acceptance of organic farming: 1) limited interaction with extension agents; 2) limited contact between farmers and consumers; 3) lack of enforcement of standards for organic produce; 4) the high cost of certifying produce as organic; and 5) weather conditions, especially long dry seasons and excessive precipitation during the rainy season, which makes control of diseases difficult.