Tropentag, October 11 - 13, 2006 in Bonn "Prosperity and Poverty in a Globalized World – Challenges for Agricultural Research"

Evaluation of Vegetable Farming Systems for Competitiveness in Upland Areas of Indonesia

¹Humboldt University Berlin, Horticultural Plant Systems, Germany
²Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Development Planning and Project Management, Germany

Abstract

Vegetable farming systems (VFS) in uplands in Indonesia comprise some horticultural products, like mustard, cabbage, potato, carrot, chilli, and cauliflower. Its production is important for the vegetable consumption in Indonesia. The research is focused on the problems regarding the profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of VFS and to clarify the highest priority product to be cultivated in the upland area.
The information and data from the literature were not enough to get answers of the questions. Therefore it was necessary to collect primary data in the investigated regions. This data collection was carried out in three upland areas by analysing two villages in each with main vegetable producer in order to characterise the typical physical condition of agroecology. It is then applied a respondent classification based on commodity on these two villages in each region. In each village 25 respondents (50 respondents in the two villages) were interviewed. The number of all respondents in all regions is 150 farmers. The Domestic Resource Cost Method, Cost Benefit Analysis and Analytical Hierarchy Method were used in this study, especially for calculation of economical value.
This research shows that VFS in upland areas of Indonesia is profitable, especially for potato, cabbage and carrot, but for other vegetable products, such as chilli and mustard have no profitability. Vegetable products which have comparative and competitive advantages are cabbage and potato, and otherwise based on social and economic analysis, both of them can be sustainable. The highest priority product to be cultivated in upland area is potato, it considers not only profitability aspect but also marketing condition and sustainability perspective.
Based on the results of this research, it can be concluded that some of programs are necessary to be created for the government in order to support the development of vegetable farming system in upland areas, such as technical assistance, improving the quality and safety standards of products, developing competitive agribusiness areas, especially for potato and cabbage as export and import substitution products based on the agro ecosystem advantage or infra structural in each region.

Keywords: Social economy, sustainable agriculture, vegetable farming system

Contact Address: Idha Arsanti, Humboldt University Berlin, Horticultural Plant Systems, Lentzeallee 75, 14195 Berlin, Germany, e-mail: idha_arsantiyahoo.com