Faktor-Faktor Yang Mempengaruhi Produksi Sektor Pertanian Sumatera Barat

Agricultural sector plays important role in West Sumatra’s economy. The sector contributes significantly to income, employment, foreign exchange, and tax revenue. It also supplies raw materials for industry and service sectors that lead to larger spread effect to the economic development of the province. However, West Sumatra has been facing slower growth of its agriculture production for last two decades. Has this sector already reached its peak production? To answer this question, in this study, we examine the factors for agricultural production of West Sumatra by applying Cobb-Douglas model that hypothesizes labor, investment in agriculture and land as the factors. By analyzing the data from 2000-2016, we found that the model could explain these factors for West Sumatra agricultural production as R-square of the model is 71.3%. Agricultural land is the only factor that is positively significant for the production, while both labor and investment are not. The findings signalize that West Sumatra agricultural sector almost reach the peak production within the current stage of technology and human resources. With limitation of land for agricultural expansion, West Sumatra needs to strictly prohibit agricultural land conversion, to improve human resources and to change the agricultural technologies for further agricultural development.