Role of Agricultural Counselling Centre in the Development of Black Rice Programme in Central Java, Indonesia

Abstract

The study assessed the role of agricultural counselling centres in the development of black rice programme in Central Java, Indonesia. Black rice is a food source that has health benefits. Purplish black colour comes from anthocyanin which contains high antioxidants, used as an alternative healthy food to prevent degenerative diseases such as heart attacks and diabetes. The purpose of the study was to analyse the convergence communication and communication networks of actors who are involved in the development of black rice programme. Phenomenology and qualitative approaches are used to find out how the actors interact in the development of black rice programme. This study took data from in-depth interviews with 32 informants, 19 FGD informants, observation processes and analysed using UCINET 6. The results show that communication networks are formed in personal networks, the highest degree of centrality value was used to see the interaction between actors with the link in the meeting of information needs (0.287). The actors who have the highest centrality value, the Agricultural Counselling Centre (BPP) indicates that BPP has the ability to be a communication bridge in the communication networks to increase the participation of actors in the development of black rice programme in order to run sustainable.

Keywords: Black rice, communication networks, convergence communication, programme development.