Appraisal of shallot farming sustainability in Brebes Regency, Central Java Province, Indonesia

Iskandar Lubis, M. Syamsul Maarif, Widiatmaka, Dina Martha Susilawati

Abstract: Shallot farming in Brebes Regency faces some problems to reach the sustainability. The objective of this study was to analyse index and sustainability status of shallot farming in Brebes Regency. The analysis used modifi cation of Rapfi sh method by using Multidimensional Scaling that we called RAP-SHALLOT. The analysis of sustainability of shallot farming in multidimensional revealed that shallot farming carried out by farmer was less sustainable with the sustainability index was 46.18. This index was contributed from ecological, technological, and institutional dimension which was in less sustainable category with index as 46.72; 43.24; and 37.52, while the economic and social dimension were fair sustainable with index as 52.99; 50.43. According to attribute leverage analysis showed that from 45 existing attributes, there were 17 sensitive attributes as leverage factor. They were no yield shallot caused by pests, no yield shallot caused of flood occurs, rainfall per year, the use of chemical fertilizers per ha, the capacity of farmer capital, farmer exchange rate of horticulture sub-sector, prices fluctuations, inter-cropping plants, time allocation, shallot management system, time of fertilization, application of fertilization, integrated pest management, the existance of agricultural extension, the initial capital of shallot farming, the existance of broker/middleman, and farming main partner. Government intervention is needed to improve the performance of sustainability by prioritizing the sensitive attributes in ecology, technology and institutional dimensions that were categorized as less sustainable to be fair sustainable, while the economic and social dimensions which was categorized as fair sustainable should be developed well for getting a balancing and integrated sustainability.

Keywords: attribute; dimension; shallot farming; sustainability

Date published: 2019-12-05