The farmer's response to the improvement of cropping index through intercropping of maize - Soybean and groundnut monoculture in Pemalang

Abstract

One of efforts to increase cropping index (CI), in rainfed lowland areas is by intercropping. In this system land can be planted with two or more types of plants at almost in same time, to improve farmer profit. Farmers' adoption of this technology varies and its response was influenced by the introduction process. This study aimed to determine the level of farmers response to corn-soybean intercropping technology and factors which affecting farmers response to the application of intercropping technology at Pemalang Central Java. This study using descriptive and quantitative data analysis from observation, interview and documentation. Thirty farmers as respondent were selected. In this study, analytical method was employed to determine the level of farmer response, meanwhile, regression analysis was used to determine the factors which influencing farmer response. The results showed that farmer response was high on land processing (69.57%), seed treatment (78.26%), spacing (95.65%), ease of planting corn (95.65%), ease of harvesting turiman-jale. (69.57%) and the ability to increase IP (65.22%). The variable of land area has significant effect to the response of turiman-jale technology and its increase linearly in farmer response for each addition of 0.88 hectares of land.