Articles
THE ROLE OF HORTICULTURAL PRODUCTION ON IMPROVEMENT OF FARMERS INCOME.
Data provided by 14 out of 27 Indonesian provinces, have been analysed for the year 1988. Those 14 provinces are centers for horticultural production, such as: fruits, vegetables and ornamental/cut flowers.
The fruits consist of mandarin, papaya, grapes, apples and pineapple; vegetables consist of potato, tomato, cabbage, chili pepper, shallot and garlic and ornamental/cut flowers consist of roses, chrysanthemem, gladiols, orchids and carnation.
Most of the analysed farmers are small farmers with land area varying from 0.2 ha to less than 5 ha.
They run their business mostly in the traditional way.
For rice production they adapted intensification programmes in order to optain optimum yields, while for most horticultural crops, research has been insufficient to indicate optimum field practices.
The results of the analysis indicated that horticultural farming gives a higher net value return to the farmers compared to rice/paddy and secondary crop farming.
Horticultural production can improve farmers’ income in most areas in Indonesia.
Being a source of vitamin, mineral and sometimes carbohydrate, horticulture commodities such as plaintain banana, have good potential for diversification of food patterns.
Indonesian people should not depend on rice as the sole source of carbohydrate.