INTEGRATED FARMING AS A SOCIAL INNOVATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON WELFARE IMPROVEMENT (CASE STUDY: MAS IHSAN BERSAUDARA FARM, KARAWANG DISTRICT)

• Main Author: Hauna Arifa, Sheila
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Perencanaan wilayah
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/73573
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Research on agriculture and welfare has been conducted, but the question of how significant its influence on welfare is remains unanswered. With the large number of people who are not yet prosperous in rural areas, coupled with the fact that their main livelihood is related to agriculture, this is an irony because rural communities are found to have good social capital, but there has been no form of change that focuses on utilizing this potential to improve welfare. Social innovation, both as a process and a product, can be an alternative for utilizing this social capital. With the context that many rural communities are involved with agriculture, social innovation can be seen as a process to see what problems occur in agricultural practices, even though there are many resources available in it to solve problems. With the common economic problem found in farming communities is the lack of access to high productivity opportunities, it is necessary to find alternatives in agricultural practices, especially in increasing the benefits of the resources in the system. Integrated farming as a concept that connects two or more farms is aimed at reducing production costs as inputs and outputs between farms are utilized right down to the waste. The objective of this research is to identify whether integrated farming as a social innovation has an influence on the welfare of rural communities. To achieve this goal, several objectives can be determined, namely the identification of the characteristics of integrated farming as a form of social innovation which is then continued by identifying the effect of social innovation on welfare. The research approach used is a case study, which is an approach that looks at unique circumstances, expected to answer the issue of questions raised in the research to answer the phenomenon of what happened and why it happened. The case study taken is Mas Ihsan Bersaudara Farm located in Karawang Regency because it shows indications of integrated farming as well as social innovation occurring there. This case study also found vulnerable groups, so it was chosen as a case study. The method taken to identify is to determine the hypothesis of the relationship between indicators, then analyze with Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling and then see whether the hypothesis is correct or not and interpret with qualitative descriptive as well as to draw conclusions. The data collection method is done directly in the field by distributing questionnaires to 21 respondents as the total population who are part of Mas Ihsan Bersaudara Farm. The findings in this study after analysis are that integrated farming has the characteristics of a social innovation, which increases productivity but does not have a significant effect on welfare. The structural equation model obtained illustrates that the thing that most affects productivity in terms of social capabilities in integrated farming is the production action, followed by management. The second structural equation model obtained illustrates that the variables of innovativeness, proactive, and decision/risk taking eachv contribute less than 20% to welfare. It was also found from the combined model that tested the variables of integrated farming, social innovation, and welfare that productivity only contributed 13.5% to welfare. This shows that when social innovation focuses on increasing productivity, it does not automatically improve welfare. This finding shows that productivity is not necessarily the root cause of farmers' state of non-prosperity. The reason that arises is that it is not necessarily the case that with high productivity, the salary or wage provided by the farm owner is sufficient to improve the welfare of farm members. In the context of the case study, this was also found, such as the results of salaries or wages given only in the form of primary needs such as food and shelter (housing) which then led to the nonfulfillment of other needs such as for children's education or for secondary and tertiary needs. From the model and findings, it can be used as a recommendation to the government, community, and community to consider using integrated farming as an alternative to achieve shared social goals, but it needs to be considered further when the shared social problem found is welfare because in the study findings it was found that integrated farming as a social innovation did not have a significant effect on welfare.