Efficiency of organic rice farming in Bantul Regency Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
The impact of excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that can disrupt health and environment has encouraged the development of organic cultivation systems. The objectives of the study are to identify the effectiveness of the implementation of the Standard Operational Procedure (SOP) of organic rice. In addition, it also aims to analyze the technical efficiency and the factors that affect the technical inefficiency of organic rice farming. The research was conducted under a survey design located in Bantul, Special Region of Yogyakarta. Census sampling was applied to all organic rice farmers who joined the union farmer group named ‘Mitra Pertanian’ as the respondents. The Cobb-douglass frontier production function was used to analyze the technical efficiency. The results show that the level of effectiveness of SOP implementation of organic rice farming by farmers was high that equals to 71.26%. Factors production area of land, seed and manure have significant effect on the production of organic rice with positive coefficient, while petroganic fertilizer has significant effect with the negative coefficient. The average level of technical efficiency of organic rice farming in Bantul Regency is 0.71, which means that the organic rice farming in Bantul Regency is efficient enough. To improve the technical efficiency of organic rice farming, farmers are suggested to use more organic fertilizer. Meanwhile, the level of farmers’ education shows significant effect on technical inefficiency in the organic rice farming. On the other hand, farmers’ age, farming experience and the land status do not significantly affect the technical inefficiency. Therefore, in organic rice farming, it is necessary to increase knowledge and skills through non-formal education rather than that of through formal one.