Motivational Pathways of Indonesian Millennial Farmers: A Qualitative Study of Duta Petani Milenial (DPM) Programme Participants

<ns5:p>Abstract* Background Indonesia’s agricultural labour force is ageing sharply, with millennial farmers aged 19–39 comprising only 21.93% of the total farm population according to the 2023 Census of Agriculture. The Duta Petani Milenial (DPM) programme is a national farmer regeneration initiative established under Ministerial Decree No. 434/KPTS/SM.020/M/8/2021, yet systematic evidence on the motivations driving young people into agribusiness remains limited. This study maps motivational pathways among DPM participants in Central Java. Methods An exploratory qualitative design was used. A total of 120 in-person interviews were conducted with DPM participants (90% response rate) across ten Central Java regencies with the highest DPM concentrations. Responses to one open-ended question—“What inspires you to become a millennial farmer?”—were analysed using hybrid inductive–deductive thematic coding. A predefined codebook comprising four themes and 15 subcodes was applied to meaning units. Code co-occurrences were tabulated and visualised as an undirected network in Gephi 0.10.1. Results The analysis identified 263 coded meaning units. Market opportunities and business prospects (3C, n = 66, 55%) was the most frequently coded motive, followed by family business continuity (1A, n = 36, 30%), passion, hobby, or interest (3A, n = 33, 27.5%), and community empowerment and farmer economic justice (4B, n = 24, 20%). Most respondents (n = 97, 80.8%) combined two or more motivations in the same account. Network analysis identified market opportunities as the central node (Betweenness Centrality = 12.17). Conclusion Indonesian millennial farmers entered agribusiness through layered motivations rather than single drivers. Family resources, market prospects, work transition, independence, and social purpose often appeared together. Farmer regeneration programmes should therefore support not only youth motivation, but also market access, business incubation, finance, digital marketing, value-added processing, and local farmer leadership.</ns5:p>