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Erosion and pollution in the Citarum River have reached a very worrying stage. To overcome this problem, the government has launched the Citarum Harum program. One of the policies synergistic with the Citarum Harum program is the application of soil and water conservation principles in farming seasonal crops in the upper Citarum watershed (UCW). Historically, policies and programs for developing pro-conservation farming in this area have been carried out for at least three decades but have not been effective. Increasing the effectiveness of policies requires the existence of suitable instruments. Therefore, it is necessary to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the attitudes and behavior of farmers in applying soil and water conservation. This study aims to identify the factors influencing farmers’ probabilities and participation in applying soil and water conservation techniques. A double-hurdle approach is used to identify determinants of farmers’ participation and intensity in applying conservation practices. The data were collected from samples of 244 farm households’ growing seasonal crops out of 499 farm households sample in the Bandung and West Bandung Districts. The results show that the determinants of farmer participation and intensity in the application of conservation lie in the ability to finance, land tenure and utilization, and the physical condition of the land. The level of education only affects participation opportunities, even if the increment is significant. In the future, conservation priorities must be more directed at a vegetative approach through developing synergistic perennial crops with particular efforts to convert vegetables on the sloping lands to perennial crops.

The Citarum watershed is Indonesia’s most degraded watershed. This is due to upstream agricultural practices that are harmful to the environment, such as the expansion of vegetable crops into steep areas and the destruction of forest areas. The upstream watershed’s management is critical to the overall watershed’s long-term viability. The purpose of this paper was to examine the characteristics of agriculture upstream of the Citarum watershed, as well as its social, economic, and environmental consequences. The participants in this study were 500 farmers from 22 villages in 14 sub-districts in the administrative areas of Bandung and West Bandung Regencies in Indonesia’s West Java Province. The following were the findings of a quantitative data analysis supplemented with qualitative data: 1. Farmers are typically productive adults with a low level of education (graduated from elementary school) who cultivate the main vegetable commodity using a combination of monoculture and intercropping techniques. 2. Due to financial constraints and a scarcity of land, farmers have been forced to cultivate state-owned forests and plantations using less environmentally friendly agricultural methods. 3. Farmers’ actions have an impact on critical land, river pollution, landslides that cause silting, and the Saguling reservoir’s lifespan. The key to implementing environmentally friendly agricultural practices in the short term is to structure agricultural practices with environmentally friendly technology. Furthermore, long-term sustainable solutions such as increasing human resource capacity, optimizing natural resource management, and utilizing social capital need to be addressed in the future. Keywords: scarcity of land, Citarum watershed, sustainable agriculture