The adoption of combine harvester and its determinant factors for sustainable rice production in Aceh Besar District, Indonesia

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture development relies on farmers’ ability to cope with the changes in agriculture development and technology. This ability depends on their knowledge and skills attained through various learning processes and communication. This research aimed to analyse innovation adoption rate and the determinants of farmers’ adoption. The innovation was restricted to the use of combine harvester technology in rice farming. Research was conducted by survey method to 120 farmers, selected by simple random sampling, in Sukamakmur Subdistrict. The level of adoption was measured by farmers’ awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption; while the determinants including access to information media, interpersonal communication ability and group interaction. The descriptive analysis was performed to analyze the adoption level and its determinants by score index in range 0-100 percent. The rank-spearman correlation analysis was used to show the relationship between adoption and its determinant factors. Results rated the level of combine harvester adoption as high, where 74.82 percent of farmers have adopted the machine. The adoption level of combine harvester has significantly correlated with farmers’ access to information media, interpersonal communication ability and group interaction. To increase the adoption rate, farmers need to have better access to gain an adequate and appropriate information of introduced technology.