BACKGROUND RESEARCH

I decide to conduct this research because of some factors. These are:

Maize is one of crops that bred in Indonesia. Its demand keeps increasing because of consumption
pattern has changed from as staple food to raw materials of industry and it becomes food for cattle
Besides that, the government’s target is achieving maize self sufficiency in 2014. There are two
indicators that show how the maize self sufficiency succeeds. If it’s not the amount of land is larger, it
should be the productivity is increasing.
1. East Java’s Maize Productivity
Maize productivity in East Java is the biggest contributor in Indonesia it contributes about 40%
of national production. Based on data from BPS, It keeps increasing until 2008 and declining slightly in
2010.
2. Wajak Sub district as the largest maize producer in Malang Regency
Their maize production is larger than 33 other sub districts. Accordingly, Wajak sub district has
a high potential for becoming the central of maize expansion. However, its productivity is not as high as
compared with those smaller maize plantation areas.
3. Limitation of input usage to increase maize farming productivity
So, I suspect that they might be some limiting factors affecting the productivity. The main
problem on increasing maize productivity in sukolilo village is the limitation of input usage so that it
becomes very difficult to get maximal output. Therefore, by using the input to get maximal output, we
have to make the technique to be efficient. That’s normally called as technical efficiency and it becomes
my concern of this research in which I have identified the Problems into 3 points. These are:
1. How are the maize farmers’ characteristics?
2. What kind of input that can influence maize farming production?
3. How are the rates of technical efficiency in maize farming in research area?

Therefore the purposes of this study can be elaborated as:

1. to identify the maize farmer’s characteristic
2. to analyze the input that influence maize farming output
3. to analyze the rate of technical efficiency on maize farming in research area

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This research has theoretical framework that Wajak Sub district as the largest maize production in
Malang Regency has high productivity for it. But, the maize productivity of Sukolilo village is lower
than Wajak Subdistrict where as it is one of villages in Wajak Subdistrict. The difference productivity of
both locations becomes a general problem for this research. Thus, maize production in sukolilo village
can be developed. The important thing is identifyin maize farmers’ characteristics. Those are age,
educational background, farming experience, land owning status, etc and their called social demography
characteristics.
Maize farming has 4 input factors for their production: land, seeds, fertilizer, and labor.
Therefore, to analyze their influence on maize farming output the input analysis is required. The
production function is then fitted to the stochastic frontier production function to analyze the rate of
technical efficiency of each farmer on maize farming. In brief, it is called frontier production analysis.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
From this theoretical framework, I suspect that:
1. 4 input factors: land, seeds, fertilizer, and labor have influence on maize farming output.
2. The farming system in Sukolilo has not reached the technical efficiency desired.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Study Area
The study was conducted in Sukolilo village, wajak subdistrict, Malang regency purposively where as
the largest maize producer in Malang Regency.
Sampling technique
A simple random sampling procedure was employed in the selection of 259 maize farmers
n = sample size, N = population sample, d=margin of error desired
4m the slovin formula, the sample size is 38
Analytical technique
A combination of descriptive and stochastic production function model using the method of Maximum
Likelihood Estimate (MLE) with computer program FRONTIER version 4.1 were used to analyze the
data obtained from the farmers. Descriptive tools (percentages and frequency) were used to analyze the
socio demography characteristics of the farmers
A cobb Douglas function is fitted to the stochastic frontier production function using the MLE. The
model is expressed as: di slide
Where:
Y is output of harvested maize
X1 is land cultivated
X2 and X3 are fertilizer applied. Those are urea and ZA
X4 is labor used
V1-u1 is the compossed error term

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Based on Administrative Map of Sukolilo Village it shows that most of land usage with yellow area is
for maize farming. So it is potential to develop maize farming.

1. The age distribution of the respondents shows that the farmers are between 20 and 80 years of age.
And more than 50 percent, the farmers are still in their productive age…(ada di slide)
2. On the educational background, majority of the respondents only graduated from primary education.
And 20% have no formal education. …(ada di slide)
3. the farming experience shows that maize production has been existence long ago and …(di slide)
4. the number of HH member shows that farmers can have easy access to additional labor from their
family member …(ada di slide)
5. the land owning status shows that …(ada di slide)
6. the farm size shows that …(ada di slide)
7. Majority of the respondents choose hybrid maize. …(ada di slide)
8. There are 2 types of maize farming in sukolilo village, as main and second job farming. The most of
farmers are categorized as second job farming and …(ada di slide)

The maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of the parameters result is presented in this Table. It shows
the efficiency in the input usage. Two of the explanatory variables included in the model have positive
relationship with the output of maize while only one variable, labor has negative relationship with maize
output. This implies that the increase in the use of these variable decreases the maize output.
Furthermore, just 2 variables are significant to maize output.

The technical efficiency index is presented in this diagram. The minimum estimated efficiency is
0.66924816, the maximum technical efficiency is 0.9789621, and the mean rate of technical efficiency is
0.883308. so, the maize farming is considered technically efficient about 88.33%. This indicates that
maize farmers can increase their productivity by raising the technical efficiency through increased input
usage.