Effect of Climate Change on Food Crop Production in Maluku Province, Indonesia

This study aims to determine the effect of Climate Change on food crop production in Maluku Province based on data from 1995 to 2012 and commodity resilience to climate change. The study used four trend analysis models, namely the least squares linear pattern, quadratic, exponential, and moving average. The results of the forecasting were used to estimate food crop production in the year of climate change and determine the impact of climate change on production. Soybean is the most sensitive commodity to climate change because it has a decreased production impact, both in El Nino (by 10.7%) and La Nina conditions (by 11.4%). Rice paddy, which is generally cultivated on wetlands, experienced a 2.9% decrease in production during El Nino and a 2.4% increase in production during La Nina. Maize was affected by a 7.4% decrease in production during El Nio and a 3.9% increase in production during La Nia. The sweet potato is the most tolerant to climate change, as it received a 2.5% increase in production during El Nio. Reducing the impact of climate change can be achieved through several efforts (1) identifying potential areas of drought, flooding, endemic pests and plant diseases related to climate and soil conditions, (2) developing accurate weather and climate prediction and forecasting techniques to provide early warning to farmers about climate change that will occur, (3) prepare and disseminate technology packages that are more adaptive to El Nino and La Nina conditions, including varieties, pest and disease management, inputs that are easily obtained by farmers to cultivate food crops, (4) improve irrigation channels, especially in paddy fields to increase production capacity and prevent crop failure in the dry season.

This is an abstract of an article published in the Journal of Agricultural Research on Food Crops. Climate is one of the factors outside of production that greatly affects the high and low productivity of agriculture, especially food crops. Food crops have a short cycle, so in one year there can be 2 to 3 planting and harvesting seasons. so that productivity in one year is greatly influenced by the climate change that occurs. While plantation crops have a relatively long life, ranging from decades to decades,  climate changes that occur within a span of 1–2 years do not greatly affect the development of plantation crops.

Morphologically, food crops have a very short root shape compared to plantation crops, so the effect of soil stress due to drought is felt by food crops compared to plantation crops.

This paper tries to find out how much influence climate change has on food crops in Maluku Province.