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- Fanners' Irrigation Behavior in Bengkulu Province, Indonesia
Fanners' Irrigation Behavior in Bengkulu Province, Indonesia
Thesis Abstract:
The study described the socioeconomic characteristics, psychological attributes, and political factors of farmers in selected lrrigated Command Area Development (ICAD) projects in Bengkulu Province, Indonesia and determined the association of these variables with irrigation behavior.
Tertiary blocks were clustered into upstream, midstream, and downstream areas. After block clustering, tertiary blocks were selected at random. From each selected tertiary block, respondents were randomly taken from the population data. There were 150 farmers chosen as respondents for this study, 60 from the Air Musi Kejalo and 90 from Air Seluma sub-projects.
A structured interview schedule was used in collecting the data, which were analyzed using chi-square analysis to determine the relationship of irrigation behavior with the variables. Cramer's V Statistics was used to adjust the chi-square values to determine the association between any of the variables.
Descriptive analysis of dependent variables showed that most of the farmers (70.7%) had educational attainment only up to the elementary school level. Majority (72.7%) had a household size below five members and had organizational affiliation of seven years. The farmers had an average annual income of Rp 2, 744,842.00 (US$ 1,168.01). Their private profitability was Rp 1,060,035.00 (US$ 451.07) per farm. The majority of them (87.3%) had cultivated farms that were 0.82 hectare on the average.
More than half (56.2%) of the farmers had high motivation, high level of perception (52. 7%) towards I CAD project, highly aware of value orientation (50.0%), had positive attitude toward I CAD project (56.7%), and high level of irrigation behavior (52.2%).
A democratic style ofleadership was dominant among the majority of the contract farmers (55.3%). On the other hand, autocratic leadership was reported by 32.7 percent of the farmers and more than 10 percent reported using the laissez faire style. For people empowerment, many of the upstream farmers (59.54%) chose nature of participation among project beneficiaries as the single most important measure. On the other hand, 44.7 percent of upstream farmers, 33.3 percent of midstream farmers, and 22.0 percent of downstream farmers considered nature and number of ordinance as the least important of the three aspects studied.
In range behavior, the highest percentage was in the interaction between the irrigators and the water authorities (60.61 %). The lowest percentage was in activities wherein irrigators dealt with other irrigators in the same irrigation system (16. 70%). For contingencies and discriminative stimuli, agronomic condition garnered the highest answer for "yes" (82.3%) while the information and knowledge available to irrigators and water authorities had the lowest (18.7%). The introduction of new rules, procedures, and organizational structures into the system was a strong factor in shaping irrigation behavior-- 60 percent answered "always" and 27.60, percent "often." However, providing training to irrigators and local water authorities was not a strong factor in shaping irrigation behavior. Overall, more than halfofthe farmers (52.7%) had favorable irrigation behavior.
The farmers' attitude toward the ICAD project was the single most important factor among the socioeconomic, psychological, and political factors that influenced irrigation behavior.
