Agriculture Resource Conflict and Poverty of Cocoa Smallholders in Indonesia Borders: An Interpretative Structural Modelling

Abstract

Agriculture and poverty have been longstanding issues in many countries. In fact, agricultural development issues in the country’s borders are still poorly understood, affecting agricultural policy design. This study aims to investigate the structure of strategic programs for increasing cocoa production for poverty reduction of smallholders and reducing conflict of agricultural resource utilization in the Indonesian borders. This study employed Interpretative Structural Modelling. Novelty of this research lies in the new research area, located in the border area of Indonesia, because there has been no previous research that analyses the border area of the country due to difficult access, communication and security, whereas the border area is a conflict-prone area if it is directly adjacent to another country. The results show that, based on the reality of institutional structure (central, provincial, and district), strengthening the institutional management of local resources should be more focused on institutions in the country border (districts) to avoid agricultural resource conflict. Of the 14 sub-elements analyzed, it was found that 10 can be applied as a strategic program for increasing cocoa production, driving force for combating poverty of smallholders, and reducing conflict of agricultural resource utilization in the country border for cocoa production and agricultural development in a broad sense.