Spatial difference and economic resistance of smallholder beef cattle farming in the seasonally dry tropics of Indonesia
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Abstract. Fathurohman F, Safitri LS, Vinanda G, Khairad M, Fortuna PED, Utami IRP, Indrianingsih RS. 2026. Spatial difference and economic resistance of smallholder beef cattle farming in the seasonally dry tropics of Indonesia. Intl J Trop Drylands 10 (1): t100103. https://doi.org/10.13057/tropdrylands/t100103. Beef farming in seasonally dry tropics under Oldeman D3/E climatic conditions is characterized by a long dry season (5-7 months) with little or no precipitation (<100 mm), leading to extreme feed shortage and socio-economic exposure. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the ecological carrying capacity of agricultural by-products and the economic resilience of smallholder beef cattle systems in Subang District, Indonesia. During the study procedures, regional agronomic data were combined with socio-economic data from 150 farmers. These farmers were classified as "Conventional" and "Optimized" feeding systems depending on the use of processed crop residues. Based on spatial analysis, there was a huge potential for agricultural residues to be utilized as alternative ruminant feed (more than 1 million tons of dry matter per year). However, the available feed resources were not uniformly distributed, resulting in a geographical isolation of the forage-deficient livestock centers in the south from the high-production lowlands in the north. From an economic perspective, the "Optimized" system (mechanical chopping and local fermentation) showed better resilience, according to the descriptive deterministic modelling. This adaptability was reflected in increased daily profit margins (USD 0.70 vs USD 0.10 per animal unit) and a reduction in daily labor hours by 2.5 hours from a distant foraging. The region's feed insecurity was largely caused by inefficiencies in the distribution of resources rather than a biological deficit. Improving the ability of smallholders to survive long droughts could be achieved by implementing intelligent policy changes with regard to inter-zonal biomass mobilization and on-farm processing facilities. These interventions are key to help close the gap of geography and to promote the socio-ecological sustainability in a long-term perspective in forage-constrained environments.
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