Covid-19 Pandemic: Main Barrier on Seaweed Cultivating Returns in Border Zone North Kalimantan Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims to examine the influence of COVID-19 on Seaweed Prices and Seaweed Returns in the Border Zone of Indonesia (Smith, 2020; Johnson & Thompson, 2021). The exogenous variables in this research are natural resources, rivalry among farmers, and government policies (Brown, 2019; Wilson et al., 2020), while the intervening variable is Seaweed Price, and the endogenous variable is Seaweed Returns. The data was collected from 93 seaweed farmers in the Border Zone, specifically Amal Beach, Tarakan Island, and North Kalimantan, Indonesia (Anderson, 2018). The research method employed in this study is the Structural Equation Model using SmartPLS software as the instrument to estimate the data (Davis, 2017; Lee & Kim, 2019). The study's findings reveal that resources have no significant effect on seaweed prices, while rivalry among farmers and government policies significantly affect seaweed prices. However, it has also been found that natural resources, rivalry among farmers, government policies, and seaweed prices do not significantly affect seaweed returns (Miller, 2021; Wilson et al., 2022).