Abstract
While there is a global consensus that agricultural systems need to be transformed to be more sustainable, possible pathways and challenges to this process are still debated. We analyse the challenges and opportunities involved in transforming smallholder farming to organic agriculture in Indonesia, where the intense application of Green Revolution technologies came at enormous environmental costs. We adopt a transdisciplinary approach to identify possible pathways towards organic agriculture, based on an analysis of farmers’ knowledge and barriers to adoption, value and belief systems, and institutional structures, including policies and regulations. We present our empirical findings as ‘system knowledge’, ‘target knowledge’ and ‘transformation knowledge’ and incorporate insights from both academics and practitioners. We draw on evidence from large-scale surveys, field experiments, in-depth interviews, participant observation and document analysis. A key insight of our research is that Indonesia does not lack initiatives towards organic farming, but that these various initiatives have different motivations, goals and strategies. This misalignment detracts from the transformational potential of organic agriculture and is responsible for the hitherto limited success of the organic transition. Our findings suggest that policy action at multiple levels is required, guided by an inclusive strategy that is drawn up in a participatory manner.
Highlights
Results from our Willingness to Pay (WTP) experiment indicated that urban consumers in Yogyakarta are willing to pay an average price premium of 20% for organic rice compared to the non-organic rice they commonly purchased outside of the experiment
Not all organic actors are able to reconcile their socio-ecological ideals with market expansion and the shift towards industrial-scale production. Some actively oppose these trends, promoting, as an alternative, short-chain and local-scale markets. Despite their opposition to prevailing trends, we suggest that these actors can still play important roles in developing sustainable organic agriculture in Indonesia
A key insight of our research is that Indonesia does not lack initiatives towards organic farming; the various initiatives have different motivations and different goals as well as unclear scope of actual implementation
Summary
Humanity faces unprecedented challenges due to climate change, increasing demand for food and the continuous depletion of natural resources, making the transformation to sustainable food production more urgent than ever [1]. Agricultural development entailed a significant intensification in the use of chemical inputs, especially fertiliser and pesticides [2]. Intensive agriculture has contributed massively to global environmental change and the loss of important ecosystem services, for example due to the loss of biodiversity and decline in soil quality [3,4,5]. Agricultural production itself is threatened by these changes.
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