The Analysis of Development Strategies for Organic Vegetables Business for The Group of Farmers Cibolerang Agro, Selaawi-Garut

Abstract

Vegetables are one of the important horticulture commodities in fulfilling human needs because they contain different vitamins, provitamin, minerals, fiber, carbohydrate, antioxidant and antibacterial substances which are useful for human health. In this modern era, a healthy life style or more populary known with a slogan “back to nature” has been increasingly practiced by people. Many people have realized about the importance of keeping health by decreasing the consumption of foods that are harmful to the body, especially vegetables which contain chemical substances such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The people’s awareness of going back to nature in agricultural sector is supported by the government through Directorate of Processing and Marketing of Agricultural Products by initiating “Go Organic 2010” program which has been developed since 2001. The increase in the demand for organic vegetables shows that organic vegetable business has a good potential and opportunity to be developed to make organic agriculture to be more competitive and sustainable. Garut regency is one of the regencies in West Java which has a big potential in vegetable development. There is one farmer group (Poktan) in Selaawi subdistrict which has pioneered organic vegetable agriculture, that is, Poktan Cibolerang Agro (Cibo Agro) which was established in 2009. In 2011, Poktan Cibo Agro got a certificate of organic food from Indonesian Organic Farming Certificate (Inofice). This research is part of National Research Strategy entitled Production Strategy of Organic Food with Agriculture-Based High Added Value in West Java. The objectives of this research were 1) to identify and describe the production process of organic vegetables, 2) to identify and study internal as well as external factors related to the development of Cibo Agro organic vegetables and 3) to formulate strategies for effective business development of organic vegetables for the group of farmers Cibo Agro. Analysis tools used in this research were Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE), External Factor Evaluation (EFE), Internal External Matrix (IE), Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The result of IFE matrix calculation showed that in the strength factor, package factor and label factor were in the first rank (0,448). In the weakness factor, the absence of contract with suppliers had the highest weighted score (0,149). The total score weight was 2,231. The result of IFE matrix calculation showed that opportunity that was in the first rank with a weighted score of 0,551 was the establishment of organic agriculture association. In the threat factor, uncertain climate and weather had the highest weighted score of 0,268 and became a big threat for Cibo Agro farmers. The total weight score was 2,880. The AHP result showed that in Factor Level what became the first priority in the achievement of strategy focus of organic vegetable business development of Ciba Agro was the market potential with a weight of 0,269. In Actor level, what was the first priority was ICS Cibo Agro with a weight of 0,413. In Objective Level, the increase in farmer income became the first priority in strategy of organic vegetable development (the weight: 0,372). The priority strategy alternative which was obtained from the synthesis result was the strategy in increasing and conducting sustainable promotion to get the market and customer loyalty and to attract the people’s interest in organic products (0,138).