Land Critical Study and Farmers Responses in Upland Area in Indonesia

Abstract

Cultivated land is very vulnerable of resource and environment degradation that in long term will cause the loss of economic and ecological aspects. Citarik is one of the areas affected by those problems. Thus, it is now included into prior handling in Citarum catchment management. The area characteristic and dynamics of its inhabitant with economic and social condition have created critical land. These phenomena still unrepealed, therefore the writer is interested to study and to discover farmer's response toward the problem of critical land that occurs. By using land unit approach as the analysis unit gained by overlays soil map, slope map, and land use map, the researcher conducted identification process toward the critical land parameters viewing from the aspects of soil, topography, erosion, and land cover. Then conducting matching process between land critical parameter data with land critical TOR (Term of Reference) resulting in the classification of land critical rate and their spreads. After that, an interview was conducted to the farmers who use the land to discover they response toward the existing land critical. This research shows that the majority agribusiness area in upstream of Citarik catchment included into semi critical land category, which spread almost event, and the rest of the area is included into potential critical land, spreading in downstream area.