INVESTIGATION OF BARRIERS TO INTEGRATED PADDY AND BEEF CATTLE FARMING IN ORGANIC AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM

Abstract

Integrated crop and livestock system is an alternative to increase animal and crop production simultaneously and improve land quality through efficient use of natural resources. One application of crop-livestock integration is organic agriculture. Organic agriculture provides an alternative integration of livestock and plants in realizing sustainable agriculture and zero waste. However, farmers find it is not easy to implement organic agriculture due to several barriers to the adoption of this technology both in terms of external and internal factors of farmers. The aim of this study was to investigate the barriers that occur in organic farmers in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia. This study selected 130 farmers as the sample for this research by using convenience sampling method. The study found that based on factor analysis the main barriers to the implementation of organic agriculture among farmers were: production, natural resources, attitude and knowledge, infrastructure, organizational and market barriers.

Keywords

• Barriers
• paddy-cattle integration
• organic agriculture
• farming