The rice cultivation business is dominated by small farmers with average land ownership of less than one hectare. Consequently, all efforts that have been made were unable to improve the farmer’s welfare. The small land ownership is a problem in applying mechanization, technology adoption, and management efficiency. The consolidation of the agricultural system in the form of an agricultural, institutional model is essential to be developed to achieve farming efficiency, profit, and, in turn, and farmer’s welfare. An agro-socio-cultural and institutional model was designed to overcome problems faced by farmers. The study was conducted in Banjarnegara and Purbalingga Regencies, Central Java. The study applied FGD and survey methods. The results showed that most farmers’ age was 60 years, and their educational attainment was a primary school, owned less than 0.7 hectares of land size, low technology adoption rates, and yield of fewer than four tons/ha. The condition causes the farmers to get low income, with an amount of fewer than three million rupiahs/month. Sociocultural conditions, land potentials, institutions, access to capital, and product marketing were the basis for developing an institutional model of rice farming. An institutional model concept was offered in the form of management consolidation. Several farmers gathered in a joint venture called the Rice Estate Community (REC), with approximately 300 hectares. Management consolidation supported mechanization application, science and technology transfer, easier access for market access and capital for rice farming. The REC was a model delivering farming efficiency and prosperity to farmers.

No abstract

Agriculture 4.0 demands the continuous development of technology and science in agriculture. Agriculture 4.0 applies the use of the latest technology to increase efficiency in agriculture both in terms of on-farm and off-farm. Provision of fertilizers and plant nutrients is an important factor in plant growth, but the fertilizer and nutrient needs of each block of the plant have different amounts depending on the condition of the soil condition and environment such as local climate. Generally physical and chemical measurements of soil done in laboratory which are laborious in sampling, takes a long time for analysis and costly. Nowadays there are some EC, PH, moisture sensor based on probe. However, this method cannot give results in real time also. Electrical conductivity of the soil (EC) has closed relation with physical and chemical properties of soil. Veris-3100 is one instrument that can measure EC for those purposes. This paper describes the correlation of measured EC by Veris-3100 and spot measurements of soil bulk density, cone index, pH and measured EC by probes.

Transportation activity of agriculture’s production inputs and products from farm to processing house or storage house is generally carried out on poor road condition. Therefore, a special vehicle that can transport the products and able to pass agricultural farm easily is needed. The objective of this research was to design the powertrain and turning system of six wheels agricultural transporter. The design criteria of this vehicle was as follow: load capacity 750 kg and vehicle’s dimension fits to road class III criteria. The main components of powertrain system and turning mechanism were chassis, engine, gearbox, chain, sprocket, shaft, disc brake and tire wheels. The method of this research followed the common procedure of machine design process and continued to manufacturing and testing. The performance test showed that maximum forward speed without carrying load was 7.8 kmh−1 and with maximum load was 6.6 kmh−1. The smallest 180° turning radius was 3.5 m at engine speed of 3500 rpm which occurred when vehicle without carrying load.