Economic impact of integrated crop management Farmer Field School on corn production in Indonesia

The study aimed to analyze the economic impact of ICM-FFS [ Integrated Crop Management-Farmer Field School] on corn production in Indonesia considering differences in infrastructure available, government support and agro-ecosystem. This study covered the provinces of East Java and West Nusa Tenggara. Based on decomposition analysis, ICM-FFS program increased corn productivity by 30.95%, 27.94% of which was contribution from the difference in input use and only 30.01% from technological difference. Good infrastructure and government support increased productivity of ICM-FFS farms by 9.81% with 5.62% as direct impact and 4.19% as indirect impact. Of the 7.78% increase in productivity of ICM-FFS irrigated farms, 3.79% and 4.01% were contributed by technological and input use differences, respectively. Income decomposition analysis showed that ICM-FFS increased farmer's income through pure yield effect (74.29%), pure area effect (1.14%) and pure price effect (7.33%). Good infrastructure and government support and irrigation increased ICM-FFS farmer's income through yield, area, and price effects. Price effect contributed significantly to improvement in income in ICM-FFS farms with good infrastructure. In contrast, area affected had a negative contribution to income difference of ICM-FFS farms in irrigated land and rainfed land. Policy Analysis Matrix showed that ICM-FFS farms exhibited higher financial and economic profitability and comparative advantage than non ICM-FFS farms. Furthermore, good infrastructure, government support and irrigation improved the profit and comparative advantage performance of ICM-FFS farms. The ICM-FFS program is also expected to accelerate the realization of corn self-sufficiency target, save more foreign exchange, and provide more employment in Indonesia. To further improve the next implementation strategies of corn production in Indonesia, the following policy recommendations are proposed: improvement of road conditions and market infrastructure; enhanced government support and providing extension workers; provision of competitive input and output markets; proper decision on corn area expansion and productivity improvement; enhanced technical assistance to improve corn productivity and quality; corn quality improvement for export-oriented development; increasing attention on corn ICM-FFS development, and ; provision of seed aid in monetary form, and strengthening of monitoring and evaluation aspect.