The Relationship of Farmers’ Personal Characteristics and Communication Networks among Chili Farmers in Collecting Price Information and Marketing

Abstract

Chili is one of the vegetable commodities. Vegetable agribusiness is more complex than paddy where innovation in paddy farming is relatively less diverse than vegetable farming. Therefore, the relationship of farmers’ personal characteristics with communicaton networks among chili farmers in collecting price and marketing information is interesting to study. The objective of the study is to examine the relationship of farmers’ personal characteristics with communication network among chili farmers in the collecting price and marketing information in Kecamatan Pacet, Cianjur Regency West Java Indonesia. The communication network is analyzed using UCINET 6, relationship analysis with Pearson correlation test and analysis unit of individual. The result of study shows that there is relationship of farmers’ age, education level, and size of farming land with farmers’ communication network. Age is very significant and negatively related to global centrality with value of r = -0,300**, education level is very significant and positively related to global centrality with value of r = -0,298**, and size of farming land is very significant and positively related to global centrality with value of r = 0,631** and global centrality value of r = 0.355**.