Improving Technology Adoption and Sustainability of Programs to Increase Bali Cattle Productivity in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia

Abstract

Programs to improve productivity of Bali cattle should be based on results of research projects conducted locally, as they have been proven to better suit the socio-economic and biophysical conditions. There have been many research projects conducted on improving productivity of Bali cattle in West Nusa Tenggara Province. These research outcomes provide options for local government authority to develop evidence based programs that better suit local conditions and can be expected to have greater impacts. Unfortunately, these readily available options have not been seriously explored by local authority due to limited understanding of the comparative advantages of the innovations, hence there were no adequate support from national government. Some outstanding innovations have been demonstrated in small and medium scale in the farmer situation has proven to improve the cattle production capacity. An integrated village management system (IVMS) was introduced to match local biophysical conditions with biological cycle of the cattle and succeed in increasing the cattle productivity (Panjaitan 2008; Dahlanuddin et al, 2011; Sutaryono, 2008; Dahlanuddin et al, 2014). Key to the success is the simplicity of the innovation so it can be adopted easily by the farmer to solve complex problem (Poppi et al, 2011). These innovations have not been widely exposed to the bene ciary stakeholders because has not been incorporated into government program. There were some innovation incorporated into local government programs such as Bali cattle breeding programs in NTB, Mass leucaena planting program in Sumbawa, Master Plan for pasture improvement in Sumbawa, but none of the innovations were implemented as a complete package, hence it is fail to produce as an expected outcome.Incorporating of the innovations into local government programs so far is not effective because local authority is unable to make local programs as part of the national program so the scale out of the innovation is limited. Engaging farmers with private sectors is proposed to be an option to improve beef cattle production, farmer income and sustainability of the industry.