The impact of agricultural extension on productivity of smallholder sugarcane farmers in East Java

Abstract

Agricultural extension is one of the most important factors to increase smallholder sugarcane farmer capacity and encourage the acceleration of technology adoption which positively correlates with farm productivity. This study aims to evaluate the impact of agricultural extension on the productivity of smallholder sugarcane farmers in East Java. While few previous studies showing the relationships, very limited involving a relatively large number of samples. This study used data from Indonesian Plantation Farm Household Survey 2014 by the Indonesian Statistical Agency (BPS). The number of samples was 2,893 farmers consisting of 2,463 farmers who did not participate (control group) and 430 farmers who participated in agricultural extension (treatment group). Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to evaluate the impact of agricultural extension on the productivity of sugarcane farming. Typically, the treatment group is better than the control group. The treatment group has an average education of 7.89 years, land area of 2.74 hectares and sugarcane productivity of 72 tons/ha. Meanwhile, the control group has an average education of 5.96 years, land area of 0.88 hectares and sugarcane productivity of 61 tons/ha. Our results show that farmers who participated in agricultural extension have a 9.05 tons higher productivity compared to those who did not participate. Therefore, farmers' participation in agricultural extension should be encouraged by improving the frequency as well as the quality of agricultural extension. While the number of extension workers for plantation crops is limited, recruitment of more extension workers can be an optional policy for the government.