Farm Power Sources and Machinery Contribution in Small Rice Farming Operations in Kampar Region, Indonesia

Abstract

Farm power is one of the important inputs in agriculture. Farm machinery is farm power source which has been increasingly used by farmers as instead of manual tools and animal power. This paper attempts to identify farm power sources and machinery contribution in small rice farming operations in Kampar Region, Indonesia. Field survey was conducted in the region and 30 rice farmers were interviewed to collect primary data. Descriptive-quantitative approaches ware used to analyse data, including percentage, mean, and graphical methods. The results showed that the farm machinery was used by farmers to perform rice farming operations in survey areas. The most popular and dominant power sources were human and machine powers. The machine power came from hand tractors, irrigation (water) pumps, power threshers, and rice milling units. They increased during the period of 2012-2016 and total number of power available on farm also increased during the same period. The contribution of machine power for total power was significant and would become more important in the future. Therefore, there is a need to increase the number and type of the farm machinery in the region in order to increase the availability of farm power and eventually increase rice production and productivity.