Indigenous Cultural Values and Behavioral Mechanisms Shaping Household Food Security in Semi-Arid Indonesia

Semi-arid regions face concurrent challenges of food insecurity and climate vulnerability. However, the adaptive role of local cultural systems remains underexplored in Southeast Asia. This study addresses three research gaps: (1) the inconsistent findings on whether local culture hinders or enhances food security, (2) the incompatibility of Western individualistic motivation frameworks with collectivist indigenous contexts, and (3) the lack of mechanistic understanding of how culture, attitude, and farmer motivation interact in shaping food security. Using an explanatory design and structural equation modeling (SEM), data were collected from 385 Atoin Meto maize farmers in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Results indicate that local culture significantly influences farmer motivation (β = 0.424, p < 0.001) and attitude (β = 0.213, p < 0.001), with both mediating its effects on food security. Farmer attitude exerts the strongest direct effect (β = 0.751, p = 0.030), and the model explains 75% of the variance in household food security. Multi-group analysis shows that cultural influence is stronger in distal communities (total effect = 0.63***) than that in proximal ones (0.22**), confirming the moderating role of geographical distance (Δ = +0.41). The study contributes by integrating Koentjaraningrat’s cultural framework, ERG theory, and the Theory of Planned Behavior, demonstrating that indigenous institutions— tmeup tabua , Lopo , and ume kbubu —function as socio-cultural capital sustaining food availability (86.24%) amid limited resource. Policy implications include institutionalizing tmeup tabua through village cooperatives, strengthening traditional storage systems, and developing geographically differentiated TPB-based extension programs.