Impact of credit access on farm performance: Does source of credit matter?

Access to credit is crucial to improve farm performance as it allows farmers to procure inputs and technology. However, on the empirical front, evidence of the impact of agricultural credit access remains scanty. This study examines how access to credit from formal and informal sources influences the productivity and technical efficiency of maize farming in ten major maize-producing provinces in Indonesia. Secondary Food Crops Survey data by Statistics Indonesia were employed and analyzed using a quasi-experimental approach, i.e., the propensity score matching (PSM). The estimation shows that agricultural credit access improves farm performance. In fact, the ability to obtain credit from institutions increased productivity and technical efficiency more effectively than from informal sources. This study suggests that agricultural credit access remains relevant in Indonesia and needs to be improved continuously.

Exchange rate volatility and manufacturing commodity exports in ASEAN-5: A symmetric and asymmetric approach.

This study aims to investigate the influence of the volatility of exchange rates on manufacturing commodity exports in the ASEAN-5 (Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines). The study used the ARCH/GARCH, ARDL, and Nonlinear ARDL to determine the symmetrical and asymmetrical influence of the volatility of the exchange rate on manufacturing exports in both the short run and long run. Five leading commodity exports for each of the ASEAN-5 countries were used and analyzed over the period January 2007-March 2019. Our strategy using the ARDL approach revealed that volatility has a significant influence on 13 commodity exports in the short term. While the Nonlinear ARDL approach revealed that volatility influenced 19 commodity exports. Additionally, in the long run, finding from ARDL and Nonlinear ARDL also indicates risk-averse behaviour by exporters. However, in the long run, the nonlinear model demonstrates that volatility asserts an asymmetric influence on nearly all commodity exports. With this, therefore, there is the need for policymakers to uphold steadiness in the exchange rate via the use of adequate foreign reserves and amplified the level of investment.

Analysis of factors affecting the technical inefficiency on Indonesian palm oil plantation.

Indonesia's palm oil plantation is dominated by three actors. Among three actors, the productivity of smallholder farmers has the lowest productivity. This study aims to analyze the value of technical efficiency and factors affecting the technical inefficiency of palm oil plantations in Indonesia by using the stochastic frontier analysis based on the translog production function. The data used in this study are taken from the Central Statistics Agency (Agricultural Business Household Income Survey) in 2013. The number of samples used was 14,367 farmers. The results revealed that the average value of technical efficiency (58.32%) is still far to reach its optimal, showing that there is still to increase in the efficiency of palm oil plantations in Indonesia. The production function suggests that increasing the number of trees can help to increase the number of outputs. To enhance the technical efficiency, education, age, planting system, seed quality, extension service, and plasma farmer are the significant factors.

Technical efficiency among agricultural households and determinants of food security in East Java, Indonesia.

Rice is a staple food in East Java, and the average consumption is 100 kg/capita/year. However, rice productivity has declined dramatically in recent years. Food security can be reached by improving the technical efficiency of rice farming, especially in rice farming centers such as East Java Province. This study aims to measure technical efficiency and its determinants using two limit tobit. And it also aims to examine the effect of the technical efficiency of rice farming on food security using logit regression. Technical efficiency will be measured by using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The results show that the technical efficiency of rice farming is very low in East Java. Government assistance, irrigation, and extension have a significant effect on technical efficiency. Meanwhile, membership of farmer organization has no effect on technical efficiency. Around 69% of farmers can be categorized as food secure households. The estimation of logit regression shows that household size, income, land size, education, age, and gender significantly influence food security in East Java. Meanwhile, credit and technical efficiency did not have any significant effect.