The
climate change which induces rainfall pattern change, temperature rise, and sea
level rise has effects on the quantity and quality of agriculture yields,
especially food crops. Farmers are finding it more difficult nowadays to
determine the suitable types of plants and planting calendar due to
unpredictable climate. In various areas in Indonesia, drought and flood have
destroyed food crop harvests. There were many rice paddy fields destroyed or
simply failed to produce due to long dry season or flood. The main impacts of
climate change on agricultural areas in Indonesia are the degradation of land
and water resources as well as damage on infrastructure (irragation).
For example, rainfall pattern
change and extreme climate cause rice paddy fields in several regions/areas to
experience drought when other areas are damaged by flood. The result of all
that is the potential increase of diminishing yields from 2.4-5 percent to
become more than 10 percent (R&D Ministry of Agriculture, 2008) During
period of 1991 to 2006, the area of rice paddy fields suffered from drought was
around 28,580 to 867,930 hectares per year and damaged area was about 4,614 to
192,331 hectares (Directorate of Plant Protection, 2007). A more widespread
drought was experienced during El Nino years (Graph1)
Graph 1 the size of Rice Paddy Fields Affected by Drought and
Flood in Indonesia within the period of 1991-2006
The
growing threat of flood on rice paddy fields is responsible for the declining
harvest area and reducing rice paddy production. Nationally, the flood
vulnerability level per district in the entire territory of Indonesia can be
observed from Graph 1. In Java, the size of rice paddy fields which is prone to
flood/inundation reaches 1,084,217 hectares, and the extremely prone ones are
162,622 hectares, whereas in Sumatera there are 267,278 hectares, 124,465
hectares out of which are found in South Sumatera and 50.606 hectares are found
in Jambi. Based on the report of the Directorate of Food Crop Protection
(2007), the size of area affected by flood within 16 years period (1991-2006)
fluctuated with average size of damaged area of 31,977-32,826 hectares and
5,707-138,227 hectares failed to produce.
More so towards year 2050,
without any national effort to adapt to climate change, it is estimated that
the strategic food crop yield will decline by 20.3-27.1% for rice paddy, 13.6%
for corn, 12.4% for soybean, and 7.6% for sugar cane compared to the condition
in 2006. The potential decline for the rice paddy yield is related to the
declining of rice paddy field for the size of 113,003-146,473 hectares in Java,
1,314-1,345 hectares in North Sumatera, and 13,672-17,069 hectares in Sulawesi
(Handoko et al. 2008). The extent of loss due to sea level rise against the
rice paddy field shrinkage in the form of rice paddy production in 2050 is
Table 2 The Impact of Sea Level Rise Against the Decrease of
Rice Paddy Field Coverage and Paddy/Rice Production until Year 2050
