The agriculture sector has been and will continue to be important for poverty alleviation efforts in Indonesia. Indonesia was very successful in increasing agriculture productivity during the 1970s and up to the early 1990s, but productivity stagnated during most of the 1990s, partly as a result of declining public investments. Public spending on agriculture has increased significantly in the last decade, but a large share of that spending has been allocated to subsidizing private inputs.
Indonesian agriculture is at a crossroads. Supporting the livelihood of millions of Indonesians, it needs to underpin renewed and robust growth of the economy; and be a key component of the Government's poverty alleviation strategy. The challenge for the future is to reinvigorate productivity gains among rural producers, and provide the foundation for long run sustainability of these productivity gains. Productivity gains are key to farmer income growth, and for this rebuilding the research and extension systems that have seen a marked deterioration in recent years will be critical.
Farmers in Asia like to grow cassava because the crop will tolerate long dry periods and poor soils, and will produce reasonable yields with little inputs. Most farmers realize, however, that cassava production on slopes can cause severe erosion, while production without fertilizer inputs may lead to a decline in soil productivity. Research has shown that cassava yields can be maintained for many years with adequate application of fertilizers, and that there are various ways to reduce erosion.
This document is accompanyng the volume Public Agricultural Research in an Era of Transformation: The Challenge of Agri-Food System Innovation (available in TAPipedia here), which provides some of the groundwork in answering the question of how the CGIAR system and other public agricultural research organisations should adapt and respond to an era of transformation framed by the SDGs.
This report documents those detailed gender dimensions of root and tuber crops (RTC) farming practices, showing how differently men and women engage in them, and it also provides a critical analysis of the gender considerations required for interventions. There are certain commonalities across field sites in the four countries.
This article highlights the experiences and lessons generated by the project collaborators in enhancing the adaptive capacities of selected upland farming communities in Southeast Asia. The project collaborators employed capability building programs, such as farmers' and technicians' training, local climate change awareness programs, cross-farm visits, demonstration plots showcasing agroforestry technologies as climate change adaptation (CCA) strategies, and linking science with policies
This work has largely focused on the developed world, yet the majority of people and future economic growth lies in the developing world. Further, most research examines micro data on consumers or firms, limiting what is known regarding the role of macro factors on diffusion, such as social systems. Addressing these limitations, this research provides the first high-level insights into how green building adoption is occurring in developing countries.
This chapter demonstrates an experience of implementing an alternative approach, known as participatory communication with strong cultured-centered perspectives. A series of interactive extension or facilitation activities is described. The activities were aimed to conserve rare rice varieties and the unique farming practices in an indigenous community’s areas in the eastern region of Java Island.
Economic development and the successful transformation ofagriculture have been at the core of impressive change in countriessuch as China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. This transformation has relied on substantial and effective investment inagriculture, and, in particular, building capacity in all aspects of agricultural change – from technology development and transfer through infrastructural development and the processing of agricultural commodities into consumer products.
Innovation intermediaries are individuals and organisations that enhance connectivity amongst constituencies of national, sectoral, and regional systems of innovation, thereby facilitating knowledge spillover. This paper articulates the whole picture of Indonesia's agricultural innovation system, with a special focus on how different innovation intermediaries play different roles in technology transfer and knowledge dissemination.