Conventionally, agriculture in peatland requires soil drainage to enable the crops to grow. This often results in being over-drained and makes it vulnerable to fires. The risk can be contained by applying water management trinity (WMT), which creates canals for water regulation and reservoirs instead of drainage. This study aimed to examine, elaborate, and validate the WMT effect and community involvement in minimizing fire risk in peatland. We collected water table depth every two weeks from 1 April 2017 to 31 December 2020 in a coconut plantation under WMT and employed Focus Groups Discussions (FGD) in five villages in Pulau Burung District, Indragiri Hilir Regency, Riau. The result showed that the existence of WMT for more than three decades has successfully maintained water table depth between 30 and 70 cm that is influenced by seasons. The fire occurrence based on the FGD interview has been validated with hotspot data from NASA’s FIRMS. This research also employed SWOT analysis to examine the local fire mitigation strategy. The progress in lowering fire incidents and risk should be intervened with finding long-term solutions to increase farmers’ capability on sustainable agriculture. Our finding reveals that the main strength in lowering fire risk is people’s awareness in every village on the negative impact of land burning, along with the existence of WMT.
Future food production is expected to meet the capacity in providing food for 9.7 billion people in the world by 2050. As the population rises, the demand for rice cropping areas in Indonesia will double to approximately 16.5 million ha by 2040. Deploying arable land intensification alone would hardly fill the gap. In Indonesia, around 140,000 – 187,000 hectares of agriculture areas have been lost due to residential or industrial purposes every year, especially in Java Island. This research attempted to explore the viable farming method to improve rice production in peatland which has the potential to be cultivated as arable land. Three main issues hindered the development of rice growth: acidic soil and water, irrigation, and rice variety adaptation. Despite these constraints, the experiments in Pulau Burung District, Indragiri Hilir Regency, Riau using rice varieties Mekongga, IR 64, and Cilamaya Muncul managed to yield an average up to 4-ton/ha of rice grain. This number is close to the Indonesian average productivity of 5-ton/ha. In practice, the experiments leverage on an integrated water resource management and the selected ameliorant. The yield range in peatland is often limited by productivity factors such as pest, fertilizer, water, next to the cost of providing ameliorant. By further developing the practice, sustainable rice farming can contribute in securing staple food production.
The circumstance of suboptimal land, due to its complex and often difficult nature, is either under-utilized and becomes abandoned space or over-utilized and generates environmental problems. In fact, suboptimal land, including peatlands, can be an alternative amid the decreasing area of arable land per capita for agriculture. This study aims to assess the contribution of sustainable agriculture for coconut commodities in the peatlands area, Pulau Burung District, Indragiri Hilir Regency, Riau Province. Data on environmental aspects were obtained from secondary data provided by the local company. Data on socio-economic aspects were obtained using focus group discussions (FGD) in five villages through semi-structured interview to 29 residents from various backgrounds. As a result, agricultural practices in this area can be deemed as sustainable based on water management indicators. The environmental impact is very minimal, biodiversity is preserved, and the subsidence rate is very low at 1.7 cm per year. In terms of socio-economic aspect, it can be concluded that the community perceives the environmental and social aspects are well maintained. Referring to the results of the FGD on agricultural practices, land fire control, food access, waste management, and water access are aspects that are considered adequate for the community. In contrast, land governance scored the lowest due to the difficulties in obtaining land certificates. Keywords: peatland, suboptimal land, sustainable agriculture, water management
In the near future, the food insecurity risk is escalating if the surging population is not followed by increasing youth farmers while arable land is on a declining trend. Only 4 per cent (less than 3.5 million) youth aged 15-35 work as a farmer in Indonesia since the current general perspective of working in agriculture sector seems unpromising for most youth. This worsens the state of food insecurity unless there is a breakthrough to ignite youth interest. While the proportion of youth population both in rural and urban Indonesia are relatively similar (23 per cent and 25 per cent respectively in 2018), different approaches might be needed. Fortunately, many initiatives have been commenced to appeal to more youth. These approaches allow youth to acquire agriculture skills, from enabling land access to exposing the sector to the digital world. Using the available information acquired from secondary data and interviews, this study aims to identify, compare, and define the most viable approach amongst the existing initiatives, including land access, crop insurance, and incentive for youth farmers in rural area; and mainstreaming digital platform such as peer-to-peer lending, local product promotion, and vertical farming to engage urban youth. Eventually, the recommendation from this study will optimize youth role in improving the state of food security
Sustainable utilization of peatland is required for balancing production and conservation efforts. On peatland, one of the main components to examine sustainability is understanding the carbon balance. This research was conducted in Pulau Burung, Riau, Indonesia, which has a long history of peatland utilization for agriculture. The sets of utilized data included historical data of water management on peatland represented by water table and subsidence rate, next to carbon density of peat soil. The results showed the function of integrated water resource management made the yearly average water table depth is 48 and 49 cm in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The range water table is between 31cm to 72 cm due to season variability and crop requirement. Consequently, the rate of annual subsidence is averaging at 1.7 cm with cumulative subsidence in 32 yr is 54.1 cm. Since the water never drained since the establishment, the subsidence rate of the first five years is averaging only at 3.3 cm yr–1. Low subsidence rates minimize annual carbon loss during the peatland utilization around (30 to 200) Mg CO2 ha–1 yr–1. In 32 yr, the water management in peatland utilization in Pulau Burung has prevented 2 000 Mg CO2 ha–1 to 4 925 Mg CO2 ha–1 loss compared to other cultivated areas in peatland. Further, this paper discusses the practice that resulted in low emission of coconut agriculture in Pulau Burung as one of sustainability dimensions, which support the other sustainability aspects, that is the thriving local livelihood.
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