© 2002 Atien Priyanti                                                                             Posted:  14 June, 2002
PPs 702 (Science Philosophy) paper assignment
Graduate Program/S3
Institut Pertanian Bogor
June 2002

Instructor : Prof. Rudy C. Tarumingkeng PhD

 

 

 

INDONESIAN APPROACHES TO TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION

FOR LIVESTOCK DEVELOPMENT

 

 

By:

 

Atien Priyanti

 

EPN A.546010191

E-mail: crian-1@indo.net.id

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

The Role of Livestock Sub Sector in Agricultural Development

 

           Livestock sub sector in Indonesia has had significant role in agricultural development, since it has contributed 10-11% to agricultural and 2-3% to the national GDP. While that of agricultural sector has contributed around 17% to the national GDP, in which it had ever reached almost 60% to the national GDP in 1969. During the period of 25 years, it can be shown that the contribution of livestock sub sector to agricultural GDP has increased significantly, from that of 6% in 1969 up to almost 11% in the year of 2000 (Statistical Book, 2001). The average growth of livestock to agricultural GDP was close to 1% per year and has shown a positive trend.

           The livestock sub sector providing almost all meat and eggs, and part of the milk for domestic consumption. The Government of Indonesia is keenly aware of the importance of the livestock sub sector as one of that a renewable supplier of animal protein for human consumption. Rapid economic progress in Indonesia during the last twenty years has brought rising consumer’s income which in turn have led to the subsequent changes in consumption patterns that place increasing demands in the development of the livestock farming in general. During the year of 2000, per capita consumption of meat, egg and milk has been increased by 22.8%, 23.4% and 24.3%, respectively compared to that of the year 1999 (Statistical Book, 2001). It has been indicated that there has been some improvement of the society nutrition to could reach the animal protein consumption standard of 6 g/capita/day (LIPI, 1998). The trend of having this consumption from 1969 to the end of the year 2000 could be seen details in Figure 2. In addition to that, due to the changes in the demographic composition of the population and high urbanization, the livestock sub sector in the twenty years to come will grow very fast compared to the others and it could be predicted will have almost half of the total output in agricultural development (Delgado, 1999). Continued growth in the livestock sub sector in fact, absorbs Indonesia’s increasing labor force and to promote a stable transition to an industrialized economy.

As an agricultural country, most of people reside in rural areas, and agriculture is the primary source of income. During the crisis, when most of industries and banking companies bankrupted, the role of agricultural sector was very important to employ the exodus of labor force from he bankrupted companies. The size of the agricultural labor force kept to increase, which reached 26.6 million in 1998 when Indonesia was in a deep crisis, while processing industry sector only absorbed about 8.7 million (CBS, 1999). The structure of labor force in 1998, as an aggregate, showed that agricultural sector still has an important role in creating job opportunity; the proportion is 59% from the total rural labor force (57.48 million people). The proportion of agricultural labor force in outside Java was higher than in Java (67% vs. 51%), by contrast, the proportion of non agricultural labor force in outside Java was less than in Java (33% vs. 49%). This means that there was a lack of job opportunity diversification in outside Java, while the dependency on agricultural sectors was quite high. Non agricultural activities in rural areas consist of trading (13.6%), community services (8.3%), construction (3.3%), transportation and communication (7.8%).  

           The supply of meat has been contributed by broiler broiler, beef, mutton, chevon, pork and meat of other animal species, while that of eggs are mainly produced by layers, native chicken and ducks. Domestic beef production has never met the national demand for beef meat, so that import of feeder cattle and meat has been operation beginning in 1991 to balance the increasing domestic demand. It is known that Indonesia has experienced being a net exported of live cattle in the 70’s, until the rate of increase the demand for beef become faster and the domestic production could not comply in the late 80’s. The increased demand on beef has given a high pressure to the national standing stock and reduced off-take rates, therefore, meat in the form of fresh or frozen meat (with or boneless meat) import has become the only alternative being considered to satisfy the national consumption. In contrast, export of broiler increased by year beginning with 0.3 tons in 1991 to 703.8 tons in 2000 with trade values of US$ 8700 to US$ 1,298,500 respectively (Statistical Book, 2001). Milk production satisfy only 35% of the national demand, hence the rest has to rely on imported milk. The Government of Indonesia has placed various regulations for the dairy industry, such as import ratio, import tariff, import licensing and restrictions, however, with the latest Presidential Instruction (Inpres No.4/1998) in response to the 50 items commitment with IMF, all the regulations have been lifted out. National egg consumption has been met by domestic production since 1980’s, which indicates its potential for export. Export of eggs from Indonesia could be considered small and negligible, which started in 1996 with only 60 kg of eggs and jumped to almost 6 tons of eggs in the year of 2000. This was a good sign that Indonesia has the potential to export chicken eggs that is contrary to the situation in years before 1984 during which Indonesia was a net importer of chicken eggs.

           The present state of the art of the livestock sub sector in Indonesia at the present monetary condition is far from being satisfactory. However, this should not encourage further development efforts as it is the most potential farming that effects directly the well being of the people. To face challenges in the simultaneous globalization and incorporation of profit and commercialization approach, it is important to elaborate further the operational steps towards livestock technology development. Improving location-specific farming systems involves not only technological problems, but also includes appropriate management systems, one of this is how to transfer the appropriate technology to the farmers. The research and development (R&D) should start with the users’ needs, continuing with users’ participation in the field testing and ending with the technological results in the users’ hand to gain wider acceptance in the community. The concept of adoption technology means a conscious shift from commodity approach to become more contextual oriented research that could fit production technology systematically to each unique agro ecoregional. The objective of this paper is to provide some information on the Indonesian approaches to technology adoption for livestock development which will be deal with the provided and transfer technology for specific location and the role of the new paradigm from the Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (AARD) as the center research organization in Indonesia under the Ministry of Agriculture.

 

 

 

 

Research Organization and Institution

 

           Through the Presidential Decree No.61 of 1998, the status, duties and function of the AARD have been further improved. The AARD will certainly require greater resiliency in facing difficult and more complicated challenges to the Indonesian agricultural sector as the third millennium approaches. The main agricultural R&D program consists of seven general and inter-related topics, they are (AARD, 1999):

1.                  Main program agricultural resource research,

2.                  Main program research on improvement of genetic potential,

3.                  Main program biotechnology research,

4.                  Main program assessment and development of location specific technology and agricultural farming systems,

5.                  Main program socio-economic and policy research,

6.                  Main program communication of research results, and

7.                  Main program institutional development.

 

The main duties and function of the AARD are widely divided into several Structural Echelon II work units, in accordance with their defined primary duties. Those main duties cover:

1.                  Technical and administration services, and

2.                  Guidance and program formulation, and

3.                  Communication guidance, library management, science and technology (S&T) information transfer, and research communication, and

4.                  Implementation of various disciplinary fields of research (socio-economic, agro-climate, agricultural equipment and machinery), and

5.                  Commodity research implementation (livestock, food crops, horticulture and estate crops).

The main duties and functions of each Echelon II work unit are further exhaustively divided into lower echelon work units and researcher groups and installations of technical implementing units that handle research fields and commodities concerned. The Central Research Institute for Animal Sciences (CRIAS) has assigned tasks on the implementation of research and development on animal sciences, in which consists of two research institutes, namely the Research Institute for Animal Production (RIAP) and the Research Institute for Veterinary Sciences (RIVS). These Research Institutes should perform animal commodity research as a whole, starting from evaluation, characterization and sustaining genetic resource, improvement of genetic potential, post harvest and processing. Furthermore, to push more fulfilling needs of technology generated from research in certain fields, the research stations to support the above work have been established.

          

The Role of Assessment Institutes for Agricultural Technology

 

           Appropriate agricultural technology application has a location-specific requirement in accordance with local unique agro-ecological zone and socio-economic conditions. This means that adaptive research and technology engineering must be carried out in the area where the technology will be utilized. In the early 1990’s the AARD responded to these challenges by establishing Assessment Institutes for Agricultural Technology (AIATs) in every province in Indonesia. The AIATs were created by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Decree No.798/Kpts/OT.210/12/94 on December 13, 1994 as institutions under AARD at provincial level to (a) to provide the regionalization and decentralization of agricultural R&D, taking into account the local agricultural resource diversity, (b) to encourage the acceleration of agricultural rural development in related regions with agribusiness orientation through the preparation of the local specific agricultural technology package engineering, and (c) to accelerate technology transfer to users and the dissemination of feed back to improve national agricultural research program and commodity research (CASER, 1997). Henceforth, this agricultural research network must accelerate the provision of location specific technology as well as enhance the diffusion and adoption of research results that can reach livestock farmers throughout Indonesia. Similarly, a problem solving feedback mechanism to address production constraints being faced in each locality can be used immediately channel information through the AIATs to reach the appropriate the National Research Institutes (NRIs) and the Central Research Institutes (CRIs) for more rapid response and solution.

           Each AIAT will assess research results produced by the NRIs and CRIs and other external research institutions, such as the Universities, Agency for Technology Assessment and Application, Indonesian Institutes for Sciences, private sector and other foreign institutions. The AIATs will use the assessment, adaptation and development approaches of participatory farming and extension systems development which are relevant to each set of unique local agro-ecosystems and set of socio-economic conditions. These R&D activities will be supported by characterization of the current condition of utilization of natural resources, research on agricultural development policy alternatives and research communication enhancement. Research communication development will be directed toward establishment of a collaborative communication network among various research institutions so that livestock technology innovations can be rapidly exploited for agricultural development. The organization and institution relationship of AIATs has been shown details in Figure 4.

 

Provide Specific-Location Technology and Technology Transfer

 

           A new technology will be relevant to a group of farmers if it responds to their needs. The extent and speed of adoption is one way to assess the relevance of a technology that is widely available. Some of the introduced technologies by NRI’s /CRI’s have been used by empirically by some farmers, however, it is avoided by the others. The phenomena indicates that technology cannot be generalized elsewhere, in which it requires deeper understanding of the environmental interactions (farmers, land, cultural and technology), implying that introduced technology should be location-specific (Francis and Hildebrand, 1989 in Norman and Douglas, 1994). Why technology is adopted at one site, while rejected by others can be answered by CRIs or NRIs for finding appropriate farming innovations and to provide awareness to the research community. A number of variables concerning the characteristics of the technology itself help determine the extent of adoption, among these are (a) the profitability and social acceptability of the introduced technology, its importance to the producers’ production systems, ease of access, timing of availability, degree of changes to current practices required in using the new technology, and whether or not it was developed in response to a clearly articulated demand from the producers or extensions (Soedjana and Kristjanson, 2001).

     The involvement of farmers at various stages of the research process is a central objective and responsibility to succeed the adoption introduced technology. Therefore, the AIATs needs to have direct links with farmers to ensure that the technology developed is relevant to them, as inputs from technology transfer workers alone will not be sufficient. Seegers and Kaimowitz (1989) has shown that even though feedback from extension to research is more common in a system with good resources, extension workers are usually not the main source of researchable ideas. Therefore, livestock research must be not only innovative, but also relevant to the final users of its products (the farmers), and its results must be broadly disseminated. There are four complementary sets of links to ensure that research result are relevant to farmers, i.e. (a) direct links between researchers and farmers, (b) links between on-farm and of-station researchers, (c) links between researchers and technology transfer workers, and (d) links between technology transfer workers and farmers (Merrill-Sands and Kaimowitz, 1989).

For livestock farming, research has included the improvement of feed quality utilizing biological technology in addition to producing more efficient animal output from the rations. In addition to that, food feed systems is also considered to be one of the researchable areas based on the local resources. Feeding techniques and nutritional aspects are among the strategies to be developed to suppress the cost of livestock production. The veterinary research area will be directed to obtain biological products that can be used directly to prevent or to control undesirable epidemic diseases. The technology of enhancing animal production efficiency such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer, and sexing may be implemented through a multi-disciplined scientific approach to comprehensively enable production increase.

 

Upstream Linkages

 

By the establishment of AIATs, Indonesia has created a three-stage flow model of knowledge and technology transfer. Technology generated from the NRIs and/or CRIs should be passed on to the AIATs for local testing, assessment and repackaging and then on to extension agents and the farmers. Under this model, the AIAT becomes the focal point and may function cost effectively if it had functional upstream linkage with NRIs and CRIs, a horizontal linkage with other AIATs and a functional downstream linkage with extension agencies, farmer leaders and other local technology dissemination mechanism. In several AIATs the linkages with relevant NRIs and CRIs are still limited, ad hoc or weak. In certain cases, the constraint is funding for collaborative activities, while the other problem is the lack of a clear institutional arrangements for an efficient linkage between the NRIs/CRIs and the AIATs.

To institutionalize a functional linkage between the AIATs and relevant NRIs and CRIs, AIATs need to allocate a regular budget and designate research specialists to work with staff at the appropriate NRIs and CRIs who are assigned to work regularly with all relevant AIATs. On the other hand, the NRIs and CRIs should also have regular budget for this purpose and a small unit with designated staff to work closely with the AIATs designated staff. They should meet or visit regularly to give feedback and to receive new findings and technology from the NRIs and CRIs. In addition, the AIATs designated staffs in a given NRI or CRI could exchange experiences with each other during those meeting. Other mechanisms of AIAT/NRI and CRI linkages could include collaboration in multi-location trials and regular exchange of publications and research or extension materials. A more active use of the available internet must be an important component of the linkage between the NRIs/CRIs and the AIATs and between the AIATs.

 

Downstream Linkages with Extension and Farmers

 

Almost all of the AIATs in Indonesia had active linkage with the local extension system, the livestock services and farmer leaders. This link was also evident with the regional university and the private sector. Some AIATs are introducing innovative mechanisms as linking the regional research institution with farmers such as the use of “Contact Tani” and the use of “Grouped Barn” for cattle raising in a certain areas in Java. Therefore, the establishments of AIATs constitute an effective major linkage between research and extension at the local level in Indonesia. It has significantly increased the testing, packaging and availability of appropriate technology for wider dissemination by the extension system to larger number of farmers and other end users.

Even though Indonesian farmers, in general, are getting more educated and development oriented, the level of progress is different from one province to another. Differences even occur among locations within a province. It is generally true to say that the western part of Indonesia is more advanced than the eastern part in view of farmer’s technology adoption and farm business facilities and services available. Farmers in western part of Indonesia are also more exposed to technological information and, therefore, are more progressive in seeking better ways to optimize the agricultural activities (Martaamidjaja, 1999). This unequal level of farmers’ progress has posed a challenge to both extension and research community to develop location-specific extension programs supported by provision of appropriate technologies that are suitable to the specific farming system of respective localities.

 

 

 

 

Increasing Participation of the Private Sector

 

           The increasing participation of the private sector and NGOs in livestock R&D has posed a challenge to the extension and research community. It implies a fact that a participatory and cooperative undertaking has been the underlying policy of extension and research, its realization has yet to be attained. To promote a possible privatization of R&D to increase livestock production is a need by simplifying bureaucratic procedures to allow private sector involvement. As an effort to explore, exploit and disseminate S&T, incoming technologies should be accepted from various R&D institutions as well as the private sector. The technology in the form of livestock development in S&T information may not exist without developing communication, collaboration and partnership systems. Therefore, the establishment of an S&T information network needs to be initiated, for both internal and external uses.

 

Approaches to Technology Adoption

 

           The CRIAS held a regular national seminar every year to disseminate the research results which allows discussion and formulation of getting partnership and collaboration research. In the last three years, CRIAS had also invited international speaker during the national seminar to enhance the information exchange and knowledge as well as to get the opportunity having the new research collaborations. The research results dissemination is commonly performed through the national exhibitions and information meetings with the clients from various communities. The response of these events were quite good and satisfaction which indicated by number of participants involved has increased from year to year. The other approach on the research resulted by CRIAS has been done by publishing a regular journal four times in a year (what so called Animal Production and Veterinary Journal) as well as bulletin on the scope of livestock development (Wartazoa). The problem is the publication would not be able to reach all field extension workers, usually just to selected people.

           In Indonesia, livestock technologies have had very little impact on production and productivity at the farm level, even though livestock provides more than only food, for example, draught power, manure and fibers. The most important motive for keeping livestock is the function of capital assets. Farmers in Central Java proposed 78 technologies to be assessed, but AIAT Ungaran only published 34 assessment-based technologies from which only 18% met the farmers’ requirements (Surachman and K.B. Prajogo, 199). This fact has shown that planning and determination for developing new technology need to be improved. These problems were probably caused by the methodology implemented and using inappropriate instruments, or inefficiency of the feedback flow that came from the farmers to the researchers. Or, it could be caused by many research publications mainly covered technology components which are based on pure science, and those are printed in scientific language that was hard for extension workers to understand, even more the farmers. Therefore, research or assessment findings should be more attractively presented and understandable to farmers.

 

Final Remarks

 

           Agricultural research as well as for livestock sub sector is expected to produce innovations to be adopted by users, in this case for farmers through the field extension workers, AIATs and straight forward to the private sector. This adoption will eventually have impacts on the farming practices. The development of new technology appropriate for adoption by farmers should be the main objective of the R&D program. At the initial stage of the research process, the criteria used to evaluate whether the new technology is or is not potentially beneficial and acceptable to farmers need to be considered. Factors that most frequently affecting adoption of technological innovations include farm size, land tenure, labor availability, credit and market access, risks and uncertainty, human capital and sociological factors.

           Concerns about the lack of adoption in livestock new technology to the production and productivity at the farm level being a major engine behind the works of a systems research. This may quite different of being adopted by the private sector, in which most belong to the multi-national firms. Therefore, a systems research work that has aimed to overcome the problem of limited adoption by farmers through the involvement of the farmers in the earliest stages of technology development is a need. This insures that the new technologies are compatible with farmers’ needs. Based on this, some observers had suggested that rapid adoption by farmers was the proper evaluation criterion for the appropriateness of new technology and implicitly for the validity of the procedures used to generate technology.

           Another challenge for today’s R&D community is the growing need for promoting the strategic research and facing the technology commercialization era. A technology innovation of the technology and economically valuable is meaningless if its application can not be dissem8inated, or in other words if technology is not performed the common types of technology transfer are giving as free of charge, sold and licesened. Livestock R&D are currently still focusing the research activities on providing packages of technologies to support national or local government projects. Facing the decentralization and autonomy globalization such kind of activities should be eliminated if it does not fit into the regional prioritization and main resources. Less attention is given to the technologies needed by farmers of marginal areas as well as of specific groups of the agricultural community, for instance, poor farmers. Livestock R&D needs to give more attention to these particular groups of society because of social justice and equality reasons.


REFERENCES

 

AARD. 1999. Strategic Plan of Agency for Agricultural Research and Development. Ministry of Agriculture, Jakarta.

 

CASER. 1997. A Highlight of the Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology (AIAT). The Agency for Agricultural Research and Development, Ministry of Agriculture.

 

CBS. 1999. Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia. 1999. Central Bureau Statistics, Jakarta.

 

Djajanegara, A., B. Risdiono, A. Priyanti, D. Lubis and K. Diwyanto. 2001. Crop-animal systems research network (CASREN) Indonesia. Progress Report. Central Research Institutes for Animal Sciences, Bogor, Indonesia.

 

Delgado, C., M. Rosegrant, H. Steinfeld, S. Ehui and C. Corbois. Livestock to 2020 The Next Food Revolution. International Food Policy Research Institute, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and International Livestock Research Institute. Food, Agriculture and the Environment Discussion Paper 28.

 

LIPI. 1998. Widya Karya Pangan dan Gizi Nasional. Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (Indonesia National Institute for Science), Jakarta.

 

Martaamidjaja, A.S. 1999. Challenges for Today’s Research and Extension Community. Proceedings of CASER-JIRCAS International Workshop. Bogor, Indonesia.

 

Merill-Sands, D. and D. Kaimowitz. 1989. The Technology Triangle: linking farmers, technology transfer agents and agricultural research. Summary report of an International Workshop held at ISNAR, The Hague 20th – 25th November 1989. ISNAR. The Hague, the Netherlands. Pp.49-66.

 

Norman, D. and M. Douglas. 1994. Farming systems development and soil conservation. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.

 

Seegers, S. and D. Kaimowitz. 1989. Relation between Agricultural Researchers and Extension Workers. The survey evidence. Linkage Discussion Paper No.2 ISNAR, The Hague, the Netherlands.

 

Soedjana, T.D. and P. Kristjanson. 2001. Ex Post Impact Assessment of Technological Interventions. Training Manual of Research approaches and methodologies for improving crop animal systems in Southeast Asia. International Livestock Research Institute.

Statistical Book. 2001. Statistical Book on Livestock. Directorate General of Livestock Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Jakarta.

 

Surachman and K.B. Prajogo. 1999. Research and Extension Linkages in Farming Systems: a field experience. Proceedings of CASER-JIRCAS International Workshop. Bogor, Indonesia.