Judul: The Role of Farmer Group and Participation of Members  in Hortikultural Farming Development in Pacet District Cianjur Regency
Abstrak: One of the agricultural sub-sectors that has grown a strategic commodity is horticulture. Horticultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has an average increase of 4.8% among the highest increases occurring in 2018 which is 7% (BPS, 2018). The increase of horticulture GDP shows horticultural products are a prospective product to be developed and well-received in the market. The development of horticultural farming requires the role of farmer groups as a learning class, a vehicle for cooperation, and a production unit. The development of horticulture farming requires the active participation of members of farmer groups. This study aims to: 1) analyze the perceptions of farmer group members regarding the role of farmer groups toward the horticultural farming development and the factors that influence it; 2) analyze the participation of farmer group members toward horticultural farming development and the factors that influence it; and 3) formulate a strategy to increase the participation of group members toward horticultural farming development. This study used a survey method among two ways of analysis, specifically descriptive and inferential statistics with the path analysis method supported by data in the form of qualitative data. The population was 130 members, with major and intermediate ability classes who attended at least 3 meetings. The number of respondents determination was obtained using the Slovin formula based on the level 95 percent of confidence with a total number of samples was 100 respondents. The determination of respondents in six farmer groups in six villages was carried out using the proportional simple random sampling technique. The results of this study showed that the perception of farmer group members regarding the group's role toward horticultural farming development was quite good, which means that the farmer group was quite capable of carrying out its role properly. The perception of the members in this group was influenced by the outreach activities. The participation of group members was quite good, which means that the farmer groups were quite capable of planning, organizing, implementing, evaluating, and developing group programs. The participation of group members was influenced by the perception of the role of farmer groups, access to information, and length of formal education, while extension activities affected indirectly them. These results were different on the factor of farmer groups involvement which had a negative effect on the member participation. This phenomenon occurred due to the presence of some members in regular farmer group meetings that did not aim to participate in farmer group activities. Hence, there were several efforts to increase farmer participation that required appropriate approaches and strategies in aspects of the role of farmer groups, the utilization of information access, increasing the role of agents of change, and improving the organizing counseling quality.
Keyword: horticultural farming, strategy to increase the participation, the role of farmer groups