7. Farming under constrained budgets: Practices of agricultural credit users in Central Lombok, Indonesia - Taslim Sjah (JURNAL AGRIMANSION, 2006)
Abstrak Petani Indonesia telah lama bergantung kepada kredit untuk membiayai usahataninya. Tulisan ini mendeskripsikan kegiatan bertani yang dilakukan oleh petani pemakai kredit di Lombok Tengah, Indonesia. Survei telah dilaksanakan pada Juli 2001 – Maret 2002 terhadap 65 petani pemakai kredit pemerintah atau swasta di tiga desa dalam kabupaten tersebut. Data dari petani dikumpulkan melalui wawancara secara tatap muka dan semi terstruktur dan dianalisis secara deskriptif. Hasil-hasil survei menunjukkan bahwa secara rata-rata petani mempunyai status sosial ekonomi yang rendah, seperti yang ditunjukkan oleh penguasaan lahan yang rendah dan kurangnya modal. Akibat keterbatasan modal, produsen biasanya menggunakan kredit untuk melangsungkan kegiatan pertaniannya, dan dengan menerapkan tingkat input yang lebih rendah dari yang direkomendasikan. Akibatnya, usahatani mereka menjadi kurang produktif dan pendapatan beserta kemampuan membayar hutang mereka menjadi menurun. Karena keterbatasan pendapatan tersebut maka petani selayaknya diberikan bantuan dana gratis alias tanpa kewajiban membayar kembali. Abstract There has been a long dependency on credit by Indonesian farmers as a result of the lack of capital to apply proper farming practices. This paper describes the farming activities applied by agricultural credit users in Central Lombok, Indonesia. A survey was conducted during July 2001- March 2002 of 65 farmers making use of government or private credit in three villages within the Regency. Data from the farmers were collected using face-to-face, semi-structured interviews, and were analysed descriptively. Survey results indicated that on average, farmers had low socio economic status, such as small land holding and lack of capital. As a consequence of their capital constraints, farmers were commonly making use of credit to finance their farming activities, in which farmers generally applied less than recommended amount of inputs. As a result, their farms become less productive and their income and repayment capability of loans diminished. Due to such low income the producers should be granted funds rather than providing them with credit with repayment responsibility.