THE ANALYSIS OF INCOME, EXPERIENCE IN FARMING AND ORANGE FARMERS’ PERCEPTION IN CHANGING ORANGE FARMING TO OIL PALM FARMING

Before 2004, orange plantations in Nagari Ujunggading, district of Lembah
Melintang, regency of Pasaman Barat became one of Sumatera Barat is good
quality product that reach the market in neighbor provinces. Observing the fact
that the exploitation of orange farm areas and orange price rates have fallen down,
then the orange farmers change their farming from orange farm to oil palm farm.
This transformation is basically to increase family incomes.
From the result of applying double linear regression, it can be obtained this
formulation :
Y = 10,112 – 1,3919732 X1 – 0,0757294 X2 + e
The result of determination coefficient R2 equal to 0,941, means that the this
formulation the variable of income and farming experience is 94,1 %, while the
rest is 5,9 % explained by the other factors out of this research. From t-test, it
show that each independent variable in this research ; the income and the farming
orange experience have significant influence on the transformation of orange
farming to oil palm farming. On the other hand, descriptive analysis is applied to
find out the perception influences of orange farming. It shows that the respondent
have a bad perception toward orange farming and they see that orange farming
has not been suitable to developed. Therefore, most of orange farmers in Nagari
Ujunggading, district of Lembah Melintang, regency of Pasaman Barat try another
option by transforming their orange farming activities to oil palm farming because
the respondent find out that oil palm farming gives better income than orange one.