Leverage Factors for Sustainable Rice-Fish Farming in Lebak Swamplands: A Participatory Prospective Analysis

Rice-fish farming offers a promising pathway for sustainable food production in seasonally flooded inland wetlands, yet existing studies have largely focused on economic feasibility, adoption, and sustainability assessment, providing limited guidance on which leverage factors should be prioritized and how interventions should be sequenced. This study identifies and prioritizes the factors shaping sustainable rice-fish farming in lebak swamplands and develops a prospective pathway for translating these priorities into coordinated interventions. A Participatory Prospective Analysis (PPA) was conducted in Epeesi Village, South Konawe Regency, Indonesia, using expert assessments of direct influence among 15 leverage factors across economic, social, ecological, institutional, and technological-infrastructure dimensions. Ten purposively selected experts assessed pairwise influences on a 0–3 scale, and the resulting cross-impact matrix was used to determine the weighted global strength of each factor. Nine priority factors emerged, led by the presence and role of extension agents (3.37), followed by water availability (1.75), land utilization (1.52), growth in the number of farmers (1.17), livelihood source (0.93), use of improved seed (0.92), water pump (0.80), paddlewheel aerator (0.80), and the role of formal research institutions (0.68). The dominance of extension services and water-related factors indicates that institutional capacity and water governance should receive early attention when technological interventions are expanded. Among the prospective alternatives, the moderate-optimistic scenario, interpreted as a moderate-collaborative pathway, provides a plausible and operationally coherent basis for coordinated intervention while maintaining the existing socioeconomic base and progressively strengthening water control, seed access, appropriate technologies, and institutional collaboration. These priorities show potential alignment with SDG Targets 2.3, 2.4, 2.a, 6.4, 8.3, 9.1, 16.6, and 17.17, although this alignment represents a policy pathway rather than measured progress against official SDG indicators. The study demonstrates how participatory prospective analysis can translate multidimensional sustainability priorities into sequenced interventions, highlighting that sustainable rice-fish farming in dynamic wetland environments depends on the coordinated development of institutions, water governance, farmer participation, and context-appropriate technologies.