Open AccessFarmers’ perception towards water and soil management in the irrigated paddy field in North Sumatera, Indonesia
Author(s) -
Wasito,
Vyta W. Hanifah,
Sukardi Sukardi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/648/1/012053
Subject(s) - irrigation , agriculture , geography , watershed , crop management , agricultural science , plough , business , agricultural economics , environmental science , agronomy , economics , archaeology , machine learning , computer science , biology
Integrated Crop Management (ICM) had been introduced in North Sumatra Province since 2002. This study aimed to explore how farmers’ perception on intermittent irrigation and balanced fertilization of ICM. The assessment was obtained using cross-sectional and field survey in Serdang Bedagai and Deli Serdang Regency. Primary data were initially collected through observation toward community surrounding the watershed. The farmer respondents were selected purposively based on their roles as innovators or early adopters. Secondary data was collected from the review of previous studies. The results showed that after its first introduction in 2002, most farmers had not applied intermittent irrigation and balanced fertilization such as the use of compost and leaf colour chart (BWD) in farming practice. Farmers perception was low regarding technological characteristics that did not correspond with adoption level. High understanding on complexity, comparative advantage, and compatibility were not followed by high level of adoption, resulting innovation dissonance to occur. Farmers in downstream area were unsatisfied of irrigation institution (P3A) particularly in dry season. Therefore, it is recommended to consider institutional (P3A) approach to stimulate behaviour changes among farmers in surrounding watershed area despite hard effort to do so.