Unintended Effect of Government Program on Beef Development in Indonesia; A System Approach

The study aimed to identify and analyse the effect of government program on beef development. The participants of the research were 50 farmers of beef farming in two farmers group in Kabupaten Banjarnegara, Central Java. A series of direct observation combined with semi-structured interviews and workshops have been carried out to capture the everyday activity of the beef farming and to highlight the potential driven factors affecting the performance of the farming. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the farming activities, the resources affected and affecting the grant, and pressures which drove farmers to get the government grant. Then, a qualitative model was drawn using Vensim® software. Lastly, a stock and flow dynamic modelling was performed using iThink® software. The model showed several common systems loops as the findings. One of the highlighted was the double effect of government grant to the systems performance. Initial design of the government program was to increase the sufficiency of national beef stock by importing cattle. However, model showed that it also had unintended consequences to increase farmers' expectation to get easy instant cash.