Abstract
Sweet potato is consumed as a source of carbohydrate as a substitute for essential food (rice). Due to limited area in Java island, Indonesia, the expansion of sweet potato could be cultivated in tidal swamp land. Therefore, this research was aimed to determine the financial feasibility of sweet potato technology packages in tidal swamp field. This research was carried out in tidal swamp fields: Roham Village, Wanaraya District, Barito Koala Regency, and South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia from March to July 2019. This study compared two innovative and existing technologies. The innovative technology introduced to the farmers emphasized on intensive processing in order to reduce the occurrence of the main pests of sweet potato in tidal fields. Innovative technologyy includes tillage done with plows and rakes. The results of this research showed that application of sweet potato cultivation technology packages with improved tillage, land cover with mulch, pest control using chemical fungicides and shallot extracts has proven to be financially feasible. Existing farmers (local variety) who switch to innovative technology using Sari variety, the profit earned increased by 232.47%. Technically, the application of the tuber yield innovative technology for Sari variety was higher, both controlled using chemical insecticides and innovative technology of 18.25 and 24.15 tons/ha, respectively. The implementation of the introduced cultivation technology package was able to increase local sweet potato production to the superior Sari variety by 96.82% compared to the farmer technology package at the same location. R/C and B/C ratio > 1 for innovative technology shows that innovation technology is feasible to be developed at the researched location.
Highlights
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) in Indonesia is considered as secondary crop after rice, which is consumed as a source of carbohydrate as a substitute for essential food
The implementation of the introduced cultivation technology package was able to increase local sweet potato production to the superior Sari variety by 96.82% compared to the farmer technology package at the same location
The results showed that if farmers using local variety switch to innovative technology while still using local variety, the MBCR achieved is 2.60 and if farmers with local variety switch to using Sari variety using innovative technology MBCR is 5,51
Summary
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) in Indonesia is considered as secondary crop (palawija) after rice, which is consumed as a source of carbohydrate as a substitute for essential food (rice). Due to limited area in Java, the expansion of sweet potato could be cultivated in tidal swamp land. In Indonesia the tidal swamp land is quite large, reaching 33 million hectares, most of which are potential land for the development of cassava and sweet potato (Nugroho et al, 1992). The national productivity of sweet potato reached 18.02 t/ha, which is still much lower than the yield potential of several superior varieties which reach 25-30 t/ha of fresh tubers (BPS, 2018). This shows that the potential to increase production through the development of planted areas is still very large. Considering that the development must be adjusted for areas that have agro-climatic compatibility with sweet potatoes
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