The influence of social capital on the small-holders empowerment of livestock farming in Sragen Regency

Abstract

The empowerment of smallholders is part of sustainable agricultural development to increase production. This study aims to identify the characteristics of beef cattle farmers and social capital, and also to determine the effect of social capital on the empowerment of smallholder beef cattle farmers in Sragen Regency. The study was conducted in June 2021 in Plupuh District by using purposive sampling method to determine the location and the respondents. The number of respondents was 100 smallholders who had at least 1 year of experience in raising beef cattle. Data were collected through direct interviews with the smallholders and were analyzed descriptively by using multiple linear regression analysis together with the F test and R2 test in order to determine the effect of social capital on empowerment. The results showed that most of the respondents had a low level of education, and the majority of the respondents’ occupations were laborers. It also showed that the respondents had a side job as a smallholder and the status of livestock ownership was their own. Subsequently, the regression analysis obtained Y = 4.517 – 0.525X1 + 0.617X2 +0.153X3 - 0.186X4 + 0.550X5 and it is interpreted that all social capital variables consisting of willingness, openness, encouragement, activeness, and participation simultaneously affect the empowerment of beef cattle smallholders. In the coefficient of determination test (R2), the results obtained is 0.321 which implied that the social capital variable had an influence of only 32.1% on the empowerment of beef cattle smallholders, while the remaining 67.9% was influenced by other variables not included in this study. Therefore, it was concluded that social capital only had an effect of 32.1% on the empowerment of livestock smallholders.