THE FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF SEED WATER SPINACH FARMING IN SUMURCINDE VILLAGE SOKO DISTRICT, TUBAN REGENCY

The Feasibility Analysis and Technical Efficiency of Seed


INTRODUCTION
Most of the population works in the agricultural sector. Therefore Indonesia is known as an agricultural country. Many families in rural areas rely on farming as their primary source of income. Accordingly, farmers must manage their farming effectively and efficiently to obtain optimal results and improve their welfare. Vegetables are one of the horticulture sub-sectors with excellent development opportunities. Water spinach is a vegetable many people love and has a significant market opportunity. Water spinach is one of the vegetables whose production increased in 2021 in East Java Province. In 2021, water spinach production in East Java Province was 384,803 quintals (BPS, 2021). Whereas in 2020, it was 290,645 quintals (BPS, 2020).
In general, water spinach is cultivated as a crop that is harvested while still fresh or sold as a vegetable. But now water spinach is grown by farmers to sell the seeds. Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency, is a place where sources of water spinach are produced. Farmers choose this seed water spinach farming business because the selling price of seed water spinach is high enough that they are believed to be able to provide a significant income. However, farmers never consider costs and record income and do not know whether farming is feasible and whether the inputs have produced maximum output. The lack of information regarding the feasibility and technical efficiency of water spinach seeds in this area is the reason for the importance of conducting research. Water spinach farming is one of the farming businesses that can benefit farmers in various regions. This can be seen from the results of various previous studies that have been carried out, namely calculating the value of costs, revenues, income, and the feasibility value of farming. Research (Mona & Fallo, 2018) states that land water spinach farming in Takin Village, Bikomi Tengah District, obtains an average revenue value of IDR2.556.250, a middle-income value of IDR2.222.289,58 and an R/C Ratio value of 7,36. The value of this research is high. Takin Village is one of the villages in the Bikomi Tengah Subdistrict, which can produce the most land water spinach vegetables because strategic regional conditions support it and are suitable for running water spinach farming. Research (Wahyuningsih, 2018) states that research on groundwater spinach in Gunung Payung Village, Landasan Ulin Kota District, obtained an average profit value of IDR3.147.698,51, a middle-income value of IDR3.292.763,96 and a farming feasibility value of 4,39. The value of this study was not much different from the study (Kolis et al., 2020), which stated that the study of water spinach in Kupang Tengan District, Kupang Regency obtained an R/C ratio of 4. Research (Amelia et al., 2022) noted that in the study of water spinach in Karangmekar Village, Kedungwaringin District, the R/C Ratio was 1,89. The value of this research is very different because farmers experience various problems, namely commodity prices, variable prices of production factors, and farmers have limited capital. In the study (Kerepesina et al., 2020), research on water spinach in Taeno Hamlet, Rumahtiga Village, obtained a B/C Ratio value of 1.7. The land spinach farming in Taeno Village is a source of income for farmers during the rainy season. Following the criteria for R/C Ratio and B/C Ratio > 1, the above farming can be declared feasible to be cultivated and profitable economically.
Compared with previous research, this study has an update regarding the research object, namely seeds water spinach, and research objectives. Most of the earlier studies were on land spinach, and this study aimed to determine the income and feasibility of land spinach. The difference in the output sold causes different production and income results. Therefore, the study aimed to analyze the feasibility and technical efficiency of water spinach seed farming in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency, is the location of this study. The choice of place for this research was purposive. The study was carried out from December 2023 to January 2023. The population is seed water spinach farmers, amounting to 206 people, and determining the number of samples using the slovin formula to obtain a selection of 67 people. The data collected consisted of primary data obtained using interviews and questionnaires and secondary data, namely journals and the Central Bureau of Statistics. This research uses a quantitative descriptive method. Quantitative methods are used to analyze the feasibility of farming, which consists of costs, revenues, income, R/C ratio, B/C ratio, BEP, and technical efficiency analysis using Frontier 4.1 software. Descriptive research is used to describe the data that has been obtained. Analysis of the data used, namely.
Knowing income mathematically, the equation is written using the formula (Soekartawi, 2002) Knowing the feasibility of farming can be calculated using the formula R/C Ratio and B/C Ratio (Soekartawi, 2002) as follows: Note: TR = Total Revenue); TC = Total Cost; Criteria: R/C Ratio > 1: Profitable; R/C Ratio = 1: break even; R/C Ratio < 1: Not profitable Information: π = Income; TC = Total Cost; Criteria: B/C Ratio > 1 is Feasible for business; B/C Ratio = 1 is break even; B/C Ratio < 1 is not feasible to cultivate The technical efficiency of a farming business has a value of . The criterion for determining technical efficiency is that if the efficiency value is ≥ 0.7, it can be said that farming is technically efficient. If the value is 0.7, agriculture has not experienced technical efficiency (Nursan & Wathoni, 2021).

Characteristics of Respondents
During the 2021 planting season, were 67 respondents in the seed water spinach farming business in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency. The characteristics of the seed water spinach farming research are as follows: shows that the average age of the respondent farmers of seed water spinach is 56 years, which indicates that the generation of the respondent farmers is included in the productive period. Someone in the productive age range has better physical strength than someone in the unproductive age range because the older a person is, the less physical strength will decrease ( (Siddik et al., 2017). The age range of 15 -64 years is categorized as a productive community for work because this age range is thought to be capable of creating goods or services (Manyamsari & Mujiburrahmad, 2014). The older the farmer, the more difficult it is to understand and apply innovations in farming (Maramba, 2018). Therefore, young farmers are expected to be able to carry out innovations and develop their potential to run agriculture. Apart from age, education level is an essential indicator that someone must achieve to improve the quality of human resources. A higher education level will give the farmer a more progressive mindset (Gusti et al., 2021). In addition, farmers with a higher education level do not run farming to meet household needs. Still, they will try to profit more from production by minimizing existing inputs. Farmers are often characterized as having a low level of education. Most of the respondents in this study had an elementary school education, totaling 40 people. This will undoubtedly affect farmers in accepting innovation in agriculture. Experience in farming will affect the way a person runs his farm. Farmers with vast expertise tend to be more selective and careful in making decisions.
In contrast, farmers who have less farming experience are usually quicker in the decisionmaking process (Agatha & Wulandari, 2018). Farming experience on the average of the seed water spinach farmers is two years, with an average land area of 0,5 ha. The longer the experience has been carried out, the easier it will be for respondents to run their farming business (Situmorang et al., 2022). Likewise, land area is an essential factor that can affect the income of successful farming (Pattipeilohy et al., 2020). The average family member of the seed water spinach farmer is three people. Many family members have a good impact on business activities because they can become household workers for those who have entered productive age to help run farming (Situmorang et al., 2022).

Farming Business Analysis 1. Cost Analysis
Agricultural costs are all costs incurred by farmers to support their farming operations. The cost analysis calculates the total expenditure on fixed and variable costs. Table 2 shows that the fixed costs used by water spinach farmers in Sumurcinde Village are an average of IDR221.850. Fixed costs are costs whose amount is always the same even though the amount of production changes. The amount cost is not affected by the size of the number of products (Tani'i & Kune, 2016). Fixed costs in farming water spinach seeds are tax, rental, and equipment depreciation. The average tax fee is IDR47.239. There are no rental costs for running this seed water spinach farming business. This is because the land used by farmers is their own. The average tool depreciation cost is IDR174.612, which consists of the sickle depreciation cost of IDR32.190, hoe depreciation cost of IDR32.642 and sprayer depreciation cost of IDR109.780. While the average for variable costs incurred by farmers in the seed water spinach farming business is IDR2.806.434. Variable costs are costs whose amount changes according to changes in production (Husni et al., 2014). Variable costs in this seed water spinach farming business are fertilizer, pesticide, labor, and milling costs. Seed costs are an average of IDR108.060, fertilizer costs are an average of IDR963.599, pesticide costs are an average of IDR16.940, labor costs are an average of IDR1.080.954, and milling costs are an eISSN: 2656-4270 average of IDR698,881. So that the total costs incurred by farmers in the water spinach farming business is an average of IDR3,028,285. The majority of farmers sell their crops to middlemen farmers and they usually buy fertilizers and pesticides which are paid for at harvest. The milling fee is IDR100.000/quintal. The most significant cost incurred by farmers in running this seed water spinach farming business is labor. This happens because seed water spinach farmers need a lot of work inside and outside the family, especially during harvesting.

Revenue Analysis
Revenue refers to the gross income obtained by multiplying the production amount and the product's selling price. The size of the revenue value depends on the quantity of output obtained and the selling price of the product. Income is the result of the difference between the income received by farmers and the total production costs incurred in operating a farming business.  Table 3 shows that the average income from water spinach farming is IDR13.281.000, while the average total cost of farming is IDR3.028.285. So that an average income of IDR10.252.715 can be obtained. This is very different from the income of land seed water spinach farmers, where the average income of seed water spinach farmers per hectare is IDR2.068.370,23 (Siddik et al., 2017), research (Mona & Fallo, 2018) earns IDR2.222.289,58, research (Wahyuningsih, 2018 obtained an income value of IDR3.292.763,96. Compared with this study, the value of income generated by seed water spinach is greater than that of water spinach. So that the farming of seed water spinach is much more profitable than the farming of groundwater spinach. This is because the selling price of the output is very much different. In seed water spinach farming, the selling price of the output is IDR19.000/Kg, while the output price of water spinach is IDR950/Kg (Siddik et al., 2017).

Business Feasibility Analysis
Farming feasibility analysis is carried out to determine a farm's success level. R/C Ratio calculates the ratio between total Revenue and total costs. R/C Ratio analysis tells the amount of Revenue per unit cost spent. B/C Ratio is a comparison between a business's income and the entire production cost. The B/C Ratio value will show the profit obtained from the total production costs that have been incurred. eISSN: 2656-4270 Based on the four efficiency analyses, seed water spinach farming in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency, is efficient and feasible to cultivate. The R/C Ratio value obtained is 4,39. This shows that for every IDR1,00 sacrificed, the water spinach farmer will receive a revenue of IDR4,39. It is known that the R/C Ratio value already meets the existing criteria, namely R/C Ratio > 1, where the R/C Ratio is the feasibility level of a farming business that depends on the size of the income earned and the total costs incurred in running the farming (Edi Supriyono, Dawud Ardisela, 2010). This seed water spinach farming business obtained a B/C Ratio value of 3,39. This shows that for every IDR1,00 sacrificed, a profit of IDR3,39 will be received. Seed water spinach farming has a B/C ratio > 1, so seed water spinach farming in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency, is profitable and feasible to cultivate. Where is the B/C Ratio, which is the division between income and the total costs of running a farming business (Hajar et al., 2019) Break Even Point Analysis (BEP) is a condition that describes a farming result that is equal to the capital that has been spent (Feni et al., 2017). Under these conditions, the farming that is run does not experience losses and does not experience profits. There are two types of BEP, namely volume BEP and price BEP. BEP volume is the amount of production needed to be achieved in running a farming business so as not to experience losses. The price BEP is the price that needs to be set so that there are no losses in running a farming business. Table 4 shows that this study's BEP value of production volume is 159.38. Seed water spinach farming will get a break-even value of 159,38 kg. The production of seed water spinach farming in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency is 699 kg. The amount of output produced is greater than the BEP production volume. Likewise, with the BEP, the price obtained was IDR4.332,31, meaning that at that price, the seeds water spinach farmers could return their capital spent in running the seeds water spinach farming business. The selling price of the product is greater than the BEP value that has been obtained. This means that farming seeds and water spinach is profitable and efficient.

Technical Efficiency of Seed Water Spinach Farming
Analysis of the technical efficiency of water spinach farming in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, Tuban Regency can be seen in Table 5. Technical efficiency, namely the ability of farming to utilize minimal or minimum inputs to obtain a maximum output using certain technologies (Tinaprilla et al., 2013). The technical efficiency value of water spinach farmers in Sumurcinde Village, Soko District, has reached technical efficiency because the average technical efficiency value is 0,89, the minimum technical efficiency value is 0,56, and the maximum technical efficiency value is 0,98. The technical efficiency value of this seed water spinach research is lower than that of water spinach research, which is 0,962 (Wiranda et al., 2018). Farming can be said to be technically efficient if it has a technical efficiency value of 0,70. Based on