An analysis of innovation on the utilization of cascara by coffee farmers

Abstract

The process of coffee production yields a lot of waste. Based on the observation, there was no innovation in the use of cascara to have high economic value, some amount of abundant cascara is used by the farmers as cattle feed and the rest is sold. The aim of this research was to analyze the level of innovation in cascara utilization by the coffee farmers. The variables of this research were the type of innovation used by the cascara community and the analysis of the economic value that has been obtained. The methods used were survey, interview, and questionnaire. The respondents of this study consisted of 26 coffee farmers in Jember regency. The results showed that the farmers who used cascara as fertilizer were 3.9%, cattle feed by 7.7%, used cascara tea of 3.9%, sold cascara by 65.3% and disposed it as much 19.2%. Based on the economic value, the use of cascara which has the lowest value is disposed it while the higher one is sold it, use it as cattle feed, fertilizer and cascara tea. Education for farmers is needed to make cascara benefits well in producing innovative and environmentally friendly products.