Department of Agribusiness, Faculty of Agriculture, Sebelas Maret University. Jl. Ir. Sutami 36A, Jebres, Surakarta

Email: evirawan17@gmail.com, eirawan@staff.uns.ac.id

The negative impact of agricultural production on the environment in terms of land degradation and pollution has accelerated efforts to develop sustainable agricultural systems, including conservation of riparian buffers. Riparian buffers are essential for maintaining water quality and ecological health in streams and rivers flowing through agricultural watersheds. Since landowners are the ones who determine how the riparian zone included in their land will be utilized, information on the factors influencing the adoption of riparian buffers conservation practices is warranted. However, research on this subject in Indonesia is still very limited. To fill this void, this study aims to reveal and examine the factors that are allegedly considered to be contributing to the decision of land-owning farmers along creeks or rivers to implement soil conservation practices, especially planting trees or grass as agricultural pollution filters before entering the stream. The data used in this article were drawn on a survey through face-to-face interviews with 97 farmers in the upper reaches of Lake Rawapening watershed whose lands are adjacent to a stream or river, which was conducted in 2018. Respondents were randomly selected by taking into account variations in land use. The instrument used is a semi-structured questionnaire covering questions on household demographic data, land characteristics, and conservation practices applied by farmers. A logit model is used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the factors influencing farmers’ decisions to practice conservation are age, education, perception of riparian buffers, farm income, non-farm income, and agricultural land area. Meanwhile, the types of agricultural crops have a negative effect on the practice of planting trees in river border areas. Policymakers should consider the factors that influence adoption of conservation practices when designing and implementing riparian buffer policies and programs.