The role of leading food crops commodity in the regional development of Sirapit Subdistrict, Langkat Regency

Abstract

Food crop commodities are strategic national agricultural commodities. In 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture has chosen Langkat Regency as a food crop agrarian area. In line with this, the direction of developing food crop commodities should be able to become a leading sector for increasing community welfare and income in Langkat Regency. This study aimed to analyze the types of leading food crop commodities and examine the influence of supporting factors for leading food crop commodities on farmers’ incomes, as well as strategic priorities for developing food crop leading commodities. This type of research was descriptive research using primary and secondary data. The analytical methods used were Location Quotient (LQ) analysis, multiple linear regression, and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The results demonstrated that the leading food crop commodity with the most significant LQ value was rice at 2.65, followed by maize at 1.49 and soybean at 1.12. The results showed that the influence of the availability of supporting factors for food commodities, such as procurement of inputs for production facilities, technology, infrastructure, marketing, farmer institutions, and extension services, had a significance value of less than 0.05. The t count or the f count was more than t table or f table, so each variable affected farmers’ income. The results of the AHP revealed that infrastructure development was the main priority chosen in the approaches for developing superior food crops with alternative strategies, including maintenance of irrigation networks (0.409), development of reservoirs (0.275), development of farm roads (0.196) and sluice maintenance (0.120).