THE ROLES OF PRODUCTIVE ECONOMY ACCELERATION FIELD SCHOOL (SL-AEP) TO INCREASE FARMER INCOME IN SUKABUMI REGENCY, WEST JAVA, INDONESIA

One of the causes of slow agricultural development in Indonesia is the human resources, in this case is farmers. Farmers are identical with the impression of dirty, shabby, and have a vague future. The profession of farmers shows the profession of having a low wage, apprehensive, hazy, traditional and no prestige. It is so natural because most of farmers in rural area are less educated, less skilled and having no enough financial capital. The Productive Economy Acceleration Field School (SL-AEP) is an effort of Regional Government of Sukabumi Regency to improve the quality of farmers in terms of education, skill and financial capital. The general objective of SL – AEP activities is to increase the productive economy skill of targeted group in the working age. The targets of Post – SL activities are the productive age of poor society (15 – 55 years old) whose business are gained through field school of Bale Motekar program (educating the skilled and labored person). In the SL – AEP program, farmers are not only trained with the skill of farmer business but also given the knowledge about a clean and healthy lifestyle as well as get equivalence education in accordance with learning packages (package A, B or C). Therefore after following this program, farmers will receive skill certificate and diploma equivalence. The output of SL – AEP is a trained and skilled farmer as targeted group, the increased knowledge of a clean and healthy life, and improving education through equality. While the success rate is measured by the increase in accretion income so it has the impacts on improving farmers' welfare. The research of SL – AEP was conducted in some Poksar (targeted groups) spreading in Sukabumi Regency during the period of 2007 – 2009. The result of research showed that after SL- AEP conducted, the income of the farmers is improving as an impact of the educational and skill increase. The achievement of SL – AEP in the District of Sukabumi is proven by the improvement of human development index