COMPETENCE OF FARMERS IN SMALLHOLDER PALM OIL AGRIBUSINESS SYSTEM IN BATU BARA REGENCY

• Main Author: Br Sembiring, Sriulina
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/44200
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Plantation is a subsector of the agricultural sector which is expected to have an important role through its contribution to the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP), export revenues, provision of employment, poverty reduction and regional development outside of Java Island. Palm oil (Elaeis guineensis Jacq) is one of the plantation crops that contributes quite a lot to all the things mentioned above. One of the provinces with the largest palm oil plantations is North Sumatera, with one of the districts becoming the center of palm oil production, namely Batu Bara, which has an area of palm oil plantation covering 38 percent of the total area. Many people live from this palm oil plantation, especially smallholder palm oil plantation which is spread across seven sub-districts. Smallholder palm oil plantation in this regency has already begun more than 20 years ago, but it has not given significant result towards the improvement of the farmer’s lives. This situation try to be seen from the agribusiness approach which see the agriculture as a system with several subsystems namely the production facility subsystem (up-stream), farming subsystem (on-farm), processing subsystem, marketing subsystem, and supporting services subsystems that are related to one another. In this research, farmer as the main actor of farming are seen their competencies in the agribusiness system. The objectives of this research are to identify farmer’s competency cognitively, functionally, and socially in the community palm oil agribusiness system and to identify weak or strong subsystems in the community palm oil agribusiness system in Batu Bara Regency. This research was conducted in Tanjung Tiram sub-district with the largest palm oil plantation which is 34 percent of the total community palm oil plantation in Batu Bara Regency. The data used in this research are primary and secondary data. Primary data in the form of questionnaires to smallholders, and secondary data in the form of documents related to palm oil plantations in Batu Bara Regency, General description of the region and the other data obtained from reading material. Respondents of this research were 97 farmers from 12 villages. This research used qualitative approach, with 2 (two) analysis methods that are: 1).Descriptive statistical analysis to identify farmers' competency based on cognitive, functional, social competency 2).Scoring analysis to identify strong and weak subsystem. The results of this research indicate that the competence of smallholder palm oil farmers in Batu Bara Regency is still low cognitively, functionally and socially in almost all subsystems. The high competence of farmer is only on functional competence in farming and the production facilities subsystem. From five subsystems existing found that thereiv were no strong subsystems. All of palm oil agribusiness subsystems in Batu Bara Regency are still weak. The low level of education of most farmers, the lack of training and socialization conducted by the government and private institutions in the research location enough to affect the low cognitive and functional competence of farmer. According to experts, these cognitive and functional competencies enter into outer competencies which are easier to develop so that by providing training and socialization these competencies can be developed. Farmers' social competency is also low, but this competency include in the inner competency which is more difficult to be developed because it is related to the motivation, attitude and individual character. The low competency of farmer in the palm oil agribusiness system in Batu Bara Regency in the future is addressed by some recommendations.