Competitiveness and Government Policy Implications of corn commodities in Belu Regency

Abstract

Corn is a staple food for farmers in East Nusa Tenggara, especially Belu regency. The cultivation of corn commodities is still limited to meet the food needs of farmers’s households and not yet fully commercialized by farmers. The study is aimed at examining: 1). profitability of corn farming activities; 2). Corn competitiveness; 3). policy impact (market distortion) on input and output of corn commodities. The sampling technique was carried out by purposive sampling for area samples and farmer samples. The data obtained was analyzed using the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) method. The results showed that the corn commodity in Belu regency reached high competitiveness. The NPCI value < 1 indicates that government policies on inputs increases the competitiveness of corn commodities. The NPCO value < 1 indicated that the current condition of local corn prices was lower than the social price which means it relatively does not provide maximum incentives for the development of corn farming in Belu regency. Whereas the influence of government policy instruments which is currently applied in the input-output market has a disincentive effect on the development of corn in Belu regency, because the added value obtained by farmers (private) was lower than what should be accepted (social), which is only about 78% and 57%. This was reflected in the EPC value of hybrid corn and local corn, which is 0.78 0.57 respectively.