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Imbalance occurs in agricultural sectors in Indonesia where fertile land, pure water, and local commodity are served; but farmers who plant paddy, cassava, and corn (products known as crops) have not been prosperous. The following question is whether farmers still depend on the cultivation of basic food crops to fulfill their needs or change to diversify food production. The answers to many questions designed to raise farmers’ awareness of various issues – such as healthy food production, productivity, quality of product, marketing, cooperation with stakeholders, and internal and external conflict resolution – need to be stated through the program of government supported by community and private stakeholders, for achieving sustainability of the agribusiness. As stated by Escobar (1998), sustainability (related to biodiversity) was linked to other sectors such as environment conservation, socio-economics (for sovereignty), and culture. However, the difficulty in emerging victorious from the fierce competition among countries in ASEAN makes peasants do not necessarily keep track of the latest developments in agricultural technology. This lack of knowledge results in a decreasing number of adoptions of innovations. Hariadi (2015) opined that most peasants in Indonesia lack sufficient willingness to courageously take risks with regards to their agribusiness—meaning that their businesses (unlike those of farmers) are uncompetitive. Therefore, the developing concept of farmers– defined as those who run their agribusiness enterprise with the goal of profit maximization (rather than merely stagnating at the daily subsistence level when it comes to food production and fulfillment)– is extremely prominent in the competitive ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Besides, they tend to engage in the specific behavior of selling the products via middlemen in order to get cash quickly.
On the other hand, Shaidi (2006) (Proctor and Lucchesi, 2012), the Director of Youth Development in Tanzania, said that it is a common occurrence for youths to not be interested in working as farmers because it is hard to become successfully accomplished in field. Nevertheless, young farmers in Sleman Regency, Indonesia are attracted to – and hold – agribusiness positions. For instance, there are those residing in the Prambanan Subdistrict who plant risky commodities – for example chilies and Dalhari water apples. Moreover, they have certified the seedlings of vegetative reproduction. Other favorite vegetables and fruits preferred to be grown are cucumbers, watermelons, melons, and so forth. The researchers find it is important to understand these farmers’ motivations in conducting their farming enterprises. Likewise, it is important to understand such farmers’ participation with the various factors involved—and to understand the effects that such participation has on their enterprise. Therefore, there are two objectives of this research:
Objective One: Understanding the degree to which young farmers are motivated to engage in horticultural farming (and understanding the principal factor influencing their doing so).
Objective Two: Observing young farmers’ participation in horticultural farming (and identifying the principal factor influencing their doing so).