**1. Introduction**

Rice is the main staple food for half of the world's population, especially for people in Asia. It is cultivated in 113 countries, with China and India leading in the production of half of the world's rice supply, followed by Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar (FAO 2017). Approximately 80% of rice production involves small-scale farmers, making its social economic discourse very contentious. According to OECD/FAO (2018), Indonesia's annual rice consumption per capita in 2017 reached 135 kg, higher than that of the Philippines (115 kg), Thailand (99 kg), and Malaysia (81 kg). Therefore, rice has always been among the top priorities for Indonesian government policies, especially those on trade and agriculture. The agricultural sector has presented a significant impact on the overall development of Indonesia in terms of increasing people's income, foreign exchange earnings, and controlling inflation. Indonesia is the biggest agricultural country, and biodiversity land in Indonesia is the second largest after Brazil. The agricultural sector is important because most of the poor live in rural areas, with the main income coming from the agricultural sector (Boni 2022). The agricultural sector's GDP has followed an upward trend from 2015 to 2019. Agriculture accounts for 13.5% of the country's GDP. GDP growth is predicted to remain strong in the agricultural sector, even compared with other sectors whose numbers have been substantially reduced. The annual GDP growth rate of the agricultural sector is 1.75 percent (Central Bureau of Statistics 2020). Meanwhile, according

**Citation:** Nugraha, Achmad T., Gunawan Prayitno, Faizah A. Azizi, Nindya Sari, Izatul Ihsansi Hidayana, Aidha Auliah, and Enock Siankwilimba. 2023. Structural Equation Model (SEM) of Social Capital with Landowner Intention. *Economies* 11: 127. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/economies11040127

Academic Editors: María del Carmen Valls Martínez, José-María Montero and Pedro Antonio Martín Cervantes

Received: 19 December 2022 Revised: 9 March 2023 Accepted: 10 March 2023 Published: 20 April 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

to The Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Indonesia's agricultural land has decreased by 0.019% from the total area of the previous year, so that agricultural land in Indonesia in 2022 was 10.41 million hectares. This is due to population growth, migration, suburban urbanization, and fluctuating land requirements (Surya et al. 2020). As a result, the demand for conversion of agricultural land to other uses will continue to rise, resulting in changes in land use (Prayitno et al. 2020), particularly the conversion of agricultural land to builtup land in Pandaan District (Prayitno et al. 2019b). Land conversion is defined as the conversion of agricultural land to nonagricultural land (Prayitno et al. 2018). The conversion of agricultural land functions can occur due to several factors, such as social, economic, and policy factors (Prayitno et al. 2021a).

Land is important in various sectors; the demand for land will rise, resulting in land conversion (Rondhi et al. 2018). This land-use change occurs for certain reasons, namely the need for development to meet the increasing needs of the population, simultaneously followed by the demands of societal needs, which continue to rise with the passage of time (Prayitno et al. 2021a, 2021b; Wang et al. 2018). If not addressed immediately, the uncontrolled conversion of agricultural land can cause serious problems (Rosyidie 2013) (Hidayat et al. 2021). In addition, the conversion of agricultural land towards economic growth, which is quite intensive, can also cause a decrease in environmental quality. Landuse change raises various economic, social, and environmental problems. Uncontrolled land conversion causes problems such as environmental degradation, traffic congestion, poverty, crime, and other social conflicts (Surya et al. 2020). To address this problem, policies that regulate land conversion are being implemented in response to the problem of converting agricultural land to other uses. One of them is the government regulation (PP) No. 1 of 2011 on the Determination and Transfer of Functions of Sustainable Food Agricultural Land (Lahan Pertanian Pangan Berkelanjutan/LP2B/SFAL), which states that SFAL is protected and cannot be converted. SFAL is irrigated land devoted to rice production that is determined to be protected and developed consistently in order to produce staple food for self-reliance, security, and national food sovereignty. There is also Law No. 41 of 2009 concerning the protection of SFAL, which mandates the government and local governments to carry out control through the provision of incentives, disincentives, mechanisms licensing, protection, and counseling. The protection SFAL is carried out by giving sanctions to perpetrators of violations of Section 44 of Law No. 41 of 2009, which prohibits the conversion of land designated as SFAL.

Regulations must protect food agricultural land to ensure SFAL availability and improve farmer welfare. These regulations thus control the conversion of agricultural land functions, ensuring national food self-sufficiency, resilience, and sovereignty. Controlling SFAL can be accomplished through the use of incentives and disincentives. Incentives are rewards for farmers who maintain and do not convert SFAL, according to the government regulation No. 12 of 2012. Meanwhile, disincentives such as revocation of incentives are imposed on farmers who have received incentives but fail to fulfill their obligations. They are carried out when farmers who have received incentives fail to fulfill their obligations by failing to protect their SFAL by violating norms, standards, procedures, and criteria, or if the land has been converted.

Landowners' intentions to change land use are influenced by social, economic, and land regulations factors (Ilham et al. 2005). In terms of social factors can be seen from psychological attitudes, which are divided into three dimensions (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) (Lenzi et al. 2012). The psychological dimension of affective attitude can be distinguished based on place attachment (Prayitno et al. 2019a), and social factors, namely the sense of community, which is related to social capital.

According to (Putnam 1993b), social capital enables the formulation of new strategies in development. Social capital is generally explained as the characteristics of networks, norms, and beliefs in social relations that facilitate the cooperation and coordination of people to achieve desired and mutually beneficial goals. According to several studies, social capital plays a role in a farmer's decision-making process. However, there is no

clear conception of how the components of social capital interact to determine behavior. Understanding community interaction through social capital can explain the factors of social capital that can drive the decision-making process toward certain behaviors. Research (Hunecke et al. 2017) explains the importance of social capital in farmers' decision processes regarding technology adoption. Likewise, Sobels et al. (2001) argued about the role of social capital in trust, norms, reciprocal expectations, and linkages. In that study, social capital is related to factors that contribute to the network of Landcare groups in rural Australia. Prayitno et al. (2022a) also explains that social capital consists of networks, norms, and trust, and that social capital emphasizes social networks bound by feelings of mutual understanding, cooperation, trust, and shared values that can encourage sustainable agriculture. In addition, according to research conducted by (Castillo et al. 2021), social capital is important in understanding farmer behavior toward pressurized irrigation technology. In this study, social capital and its interactions influenced farmers toward the transition from traditional irrigation to pressure irrigation. Based on several studies, the existence of social capital is able to influence the decisions or desires of farmers for the agricultural land they own. Social capital influences decision-making or collective action in a community. Social capital is a network based on trust, reciprocity, and mutual support with shared access and use of resources. Social capital can increase self-awareness and motivate people to act and sympathize with others (Prayitno et al. 2022a; Auer et al. 2020; Auliah et al. 2022; Hwang and Stewart 2017). Therefore, the relationship between social capital and the intention to change land needs to be identified. The components of social capital, which are trust, norms, and networks (derived from community ties), are examples of social capital that improve society's efficiency by facilitating coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit (Putnam 2001).

Trust is defined as one of the components forming social capital. Trust is a hope that grows in society and is born from an honest nature, regular behavior, and cooperation based on shared norms (Fukuyama 1995). Norms are defined as values, expectations, understandings, and goals that are believed to be carried out jointly by the community (Field 2003), and social networks are collaborative networks between communities that facilitate communication and interaction that enable the growth of trust and strengthen cooperation in society (Putnam 1993b). Social capital will build trusting relationships among people, which can influence positive outcomes (Cheevapattananuwong et al. 2020; Nugraha et al. 2021). When the social capital of a community is high, the relationship between the community and its supporting environment will be tighter and support the protection of land use. This is because farmers or landowners are the key decision makers in choosing land use (Rajpar et al. 2019), so community social capital can affect changes in agricultural land (Kizos et al. 2018; Deng et al. 2020). High social capital is required for the development of a society capable of defending and protecting its interests, particularly in land protection (Nugraha et al. 2021).

Pasuruan Regency is one of the East Java regencies undergoing land-use development, supported by its strategic location, adequate road infrastructure, and its role as the main route for East Java's economic center. Additionally, the Gempol–Pandaan toll road connects two major cities, Surabaya and Malang, and will eventually become part of the Trans Java toll road. This has resulted in the conversion of agricultural land, with 213.69 Ha being converted in Pandaan District, which is 4.9% of total land use (Prayitno et al. 2020). This change will also impact landowners' intention to change land functions. Pandaan District is one of the districts in Pasuruan Regency. According to the RTRW of Pasuruan Regency for the 2009–2019 period, one of the cultivation area development strategies is to develop agricultural areas through the determination of Sustainable Food Agriculture Land (Bappeda Kabupaten Pasuruan 2010). Agricultural land designated SFAL must be protected and not converted into urban or rural areas. Furthermore, a policy of controlling space use in incentives and disincentives for SFAL makes it challenging to change land functions. This contradicts the fact that many agricultural lands have been converted into toll roads, which causes a dilemma for landowners to maintain land or convert their agricultural

land. Therefore, this study aims to determine the relationship between social capital and landowners' intention to change the SFAL in Pandaan District, Pasuruan Regency.
