Farmers’ responses to the use of rice agro-advisory service application in South Bengkulu Regency

Abstract

The Rice Agro-advisory Service which in Indonesian is called “Layanan Konsultasi Padi (LKP)” is an internet-based digital application developed by IRRI to compile recommendations for rice cultivation technology. This study aims to determine the response of farmers in the production centers of irrigated lowland rice in South Bengkulu Regency to the application. The research was carried out from September to November 2022 through a survey involving 87 farmers in 42 villages. The data collected includes farmers’ responses to recommendations for lowland rice cultivation technology generated by LKP and farmers’ responses to its attributes, namely mobility (ease of accessing applications), interactive (recommendations by needs of farmers), communicative (recommendations easily understood by farmers), and autonomous (applications can be operated by farmers independently). Data were analyzed descriptively and correlated using contingency coefficients. The results showed that 83.91% of farmers responded well to the application recommendations. Responses to LKP were classified as good for all attributes as mobility (95.40%), interactive (96.55%), communicative (98.95%), and autonomous (74.71%). Farmers’ responses to the LKP recommendations were positively correlated with the interactive attribute which means that a good response to LKP recommendations is closely related to the needs of farmers for site-specific recommendations for lowland rice cultivation.