Sorghum is uniquely adapted to dryland and used by the Indonesian government to optimize the utilization of dryland and increase farmers’ incomes. The objective of this study was to analyze the contribution of sorghum to increasing income and the level of welfare of dryland farmer households in Wonogiri, Central Java, Indonesia. The study was conducted from October to December 2022 using a survey method through direct interviews with purposively selected sorghum-growing farmers. A set of questions included household income and expenditure. The average total income and expenditure indicators, poverty line figures, RMW, and ERFHI were used to measure the welfare level of farmer households. The study found that the income derived from sorghum contributes 22.87% to total household income and tends to increase household income by 29.65%. According to the average total income earned, farming households were in a prosperous condition. This can be seen from the total income, which is higher than the total expenditure, the average per capita income higher than the poverty line, the average total income higher than RMW, and the value of ERFHI at 1.25. Income derived from sorghum has increased by 21.43–56.00% from less prosperous households to prosperous ones. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the existing literature on sorghum development and farmers’ income and to be a reference for policy makers in formulating poverty alleviation programs and improving the welfare of farmer households, as well as expanding sorghum development by optimizing the utilization of agroecological, economic and social resources.

Building resilient horticultural systems is critical in the face of climate variability, market instability, and institutional fragmentation. In Indonesia, farmer corporations have emerged as institutional arrangements intended to strengthen coordination among smallholder farmers and improve agribusi­ness development. However, limited attention has been given to how farmer corporations operate within the horticultural value chain and contribute to local resilience. This study examines the role of farmer corporations in strengthening the shallot value chain in Majalengka Regency, West Java, Indonesia. This analysis focused on institutional coordination, governance mechanisms, and development priorities within the shallot value chain. The evidence shows that farmer corporations can strengthen resilience by enhancing institutional coordination, collective bargaining, market access, production support, and adaptive capacity in the face of climate and market uncertainty. Institu­tional integration among farmer groups, farmer group associations, cooperatives, government agencies, and private-sector actors was found to be important for strengthening shallot agribusiness governance and promoting long-term horticultural development. This study contributes to the literature by positioning farmer corporations as farmer-based institutional integration mechan­isms, rather than conventional investor-driven corporations. Our results emphasize the need for institutional governance customized to local conditions and collaborative value chain coordina­tion in developing resilient horticultural systems in Indonesia and other agribusiness settings.

Farmers’ perceptions of improved rice varieties represent a critical initial step in their adoption as climate change adaptation strategies. This study examined farmers’ perceptions by integrating on-farm adaptive research, which compared the agronomic performance of rice varieties, with participatory approaches to capture farmers’ evaluation of improved varieties. A total of 81 farmers from climate-affected areas of Batang Regency were purposively selected as respondents. Data was collected through structured interviews and questionnaires administered during the evaluation of field demonstrations. Farmers’ perception levels were assessed using a Guttman scale and classified into three categories: high, medium, and low. Logistic regression analysis was subsequently employed to examine the relationship between farmers’ socio-demographic characteristics and their acceptance of improved rice varieties. The results indicate that, overall, farmers exhibited a low perception of improved rice varieties. Among the evaluated opinions, Inpari 32 HDB received the highest perception scores across all agronomic attributes. The regression results show that farm size and age significantly influence variety acceptance. The odds ratio for farm size (0.117) suggests that each additional hectare of cultivated land area reduces the likelihood of adopting improved rice varieties by approximately 88.3%, holding other factors constant. In contrast, the odds ratio for age (1.080) indicates that each additional year of age increases the probability of adoption by about 8%.

This study investigates the relationship between cultural compliance and late dry-season vegetation dynamics in Southwest Sumba, Indonesia, by analysing a decade of August Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data (2016–2025) and Cultural Compliance Scores (CCS) across three sites. Underpinned by lende ura, a local customary philosophy conceptualising the forest as a ‘rain bridge’ that sustains water availability, this cultural framework fosters community commitment to forest conservation. Empirically, this contrast is evident where Delo, actively practising this philosophy, maintained a high mean NDVI (0.90) with a markedly low Coefficient of Variation (CV: 1.96%), whereas Mangga Nippi and Lua Koba exhibited lower mean NDVI (0.58 and 0.66) and higher variability (CV: 26.54% and 11.06%), indicating biocultural divergence. Consequently, this erosion of traditional practices is associated with changes in vegetation and observed declines in hydrological functions, making water increasingly difficult to access and heightening economic vulnerability within an environmental poverty trap. These findings indicate that late dry-season vegetation stability in this dryland setting is closely associated with the strength of customary governance, suggesting that traditional institutions may complement the formal conservation of natural habitats. By pairing a CCS with a decade of NDVI variability, this study provides a replicable framework and testable hypotheses for examining biocultural dynamics in comparable seasonally dry tropical landscapes.