IP of 1.05 indicates that in 100 ha land available for planting, there is 105 ha total planting area in a year). To date, planting index (PI) is low, on average only 1.0 – 1.05 (planting index (PI) is the ratio of total planting area to total area available for planting crops in a year. Nevertheless, the contribution of rain-fed farming to national food production today has yet to be optimal because of its high dependency on rainfall for its irrigation. In the context of rain-fed paddy fields in Indonesia, there are around 3.17 million ha or 41.2% of the total wetland areas, spread over Java (34.8%), Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali, and Nusa Tenggara. Besides extensification, optimization, or enhancing productivity on existing agricultural lands, particularly rain-fed land is thus considered as one of the potential panaceas to address the above challenge. Yet a study carried out by the Center of Agriculture Data and Information System, MoA, in 2016 showed that the productivity of irrigated paddy harvested areas in Indonesia had approached a saturation point. Īt present, national rice production is mostly cultivated in irrigated rice fields (60.3%), while the rest is produced in rain-fed paddy fields.
![badan pusat statistik kabupaten maros badan pusat statistik kabupaten maros](https://ponorogo.terkini.id/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/terkiniid_img-20210302-wa0030.jpg)
Hence, ensuring national food self-sufficiency in the face of decreasing irrigated agricultural land areas due to massive conversion to other economic sectors is undeniably to be a major challenge for Indonesia.
![badan pusat statistik kabupaten maros badan pusat statistik kabupaten maros](https://maroskab.bps.go.id/images/index/bps-ri.jpg)
Notwithstanding, rising incomes will consequently cause dietary change for many Indonesians, and the level of rice per capita consumption in recent years has only slowly declined (Indonesian’s annual per capita consumption is around 127 kilograms ). As the fourth world’s largest population and agriculture-based country, Indonesia’s current availability of agricultural land resources is ascertained not to be sufficient to fulfill the forecasted demand for food, especially rice as the main staple food, for its people which is expected to reach 321 million people by 2050 (to illustrate, one ha of paddy fields in Indonesia must support the lives of 33 people, while in other countries it is only to feed 2-3 people, or at most 10 people (Sulaiman, et al., pp. To feed the burgeoning world community of 9.73 billion people by 2050, additional food will have to be produced to at least 70% of total current production. This article shares a strategy in maximising the contribution of the currently available 4 million hectares of rain-fed land to the national food production, and hence sustainable food self-sufficiency in Indonesia. Future research with farmers as its focus and the capacity of Indonesian institutions toward rain-fed farming thus will contribute further to the rain-fed farming development in Indonesia. It is beyond the scope of this study, however, to consider the actual benefit felt by rain-fed smallholder farmers. The production of maize and soybean is also expected to increase by 3.7 million tons and 0.98 million tons per year, respectively. This study has shown these interventions, when applied to the existing 4 million ha rain-fed fields, are estimated to increase annual rice production by 16.7 million tons.
![badan pusat statistik kabupaten maros badan pusat statistik kabupaten maros](https://tumoutounews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Jumlah-Penduduk-Sumatera-Selatan-Tahun-2018-678x381.png)
Further, the use of drought-tolerant paddy variety and changing cropping pattern to focus on paddy, maize, and soybean would potentially improve the food production capacity in Indonesia. The establishment of water management system to support rain-fed fields with the introduction of suitable cultivation techniques ( gogo rancah, walik jerami, super jarwo, and ratoon paddy) is known to be effective in rain-fed farming. The major constraint has been limited water supply, where it relies exclusively on the rainfall, and hence its planting index (PI) is still low, on average only 1.05. The contribution of rain-fed farming to national food production in Indonesia has yet to be optimal.