Abstract

A traditional agroforestry named mamar has been commonly practiced by small-scale farmers of western part of Timor Island, East Nusa Tenggara Province. Mamar system is considered by many as an environmentally sound agriculture practice. However, as for other agriculture systems, the productivity of mamar system is also prone to risks caused by many internal and external factors. This study was designed to determine factors affecting the production and risk production of mamar. This research was conducted in four mamar-containing regencies of western Timor Island, East Nusa Tenggara Province. Eleven villages which have at least 30% mamar farmer households were selected from the regencies. From each village, 30 farmers were randomly selected and interviewed based on structured questionnaires. Multiple regression models ran with Eviews 6 software were utilized. Results showed that: land area, number of kinds of annual food, perennial cash, forestry, and fodder crops, number of animals reared, organic fertilizer usage, herbicide usage, number of labor days, quality of soil conservation significantly increased the production value, while slash and burn frequency reduced it; and number of annual crops, number of animal raised, amount of organic fertilizer, and number of labor days reduced farm risks. This indicates that mamar system complies with agriculture environmental soundness principles because it incorporates diverse crops; sound soil conservation nature; various number and kinds of animal raised which results in the provision of manure to mamar and other agro ecosystems; and the limitation of slash and burn. However, the use of inorganic herbicides needs to be controlled.

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