Widiatmaka, Wiwin Ambarwulan, Irman Firmansyah, Khursatul Munibah
20th World Congress of Soil Science, 8-13 June 2014, Jeju Korea
Publication year: 2014

Abstract

Indonesia is actually faced with serious problems in terms of food supply due to it’s high population. One of the public commodity which was still can not be fulfilled from domestic agricultural production is soybean. The data of Indonesian Bureau of Statistics showed that soybean plantation has declined in the last decade. As an illustration, if in 1996 and 1997 Indonesian soybean planting area is 1,277,736 Ha and 1,118,140 Ha, the planting area of 2011 was only 622,254 Ha, and even decrease again in 2012 to become 567,624 Ha. Although the average productivity has successfully been improved significantly, from 1,186 kg.Ha-1 in 1996 to 1,485 kg.Ha-1 in 2012, however the production decline can not be avoided, from 1,515,937 tonnes by half, to become 843,153 tonnes in 2012, due to continued decline in planting area. As an illustration, the Indonesian local soybean production in 2011 was only 851,286 tonnes, it was able to meet 29% only of the total national need of soybean. With that situation and background, this research was done in Karawang Regency, West Java, Indonesia, a regency of agricultural center. The main food crops in this region was rice, hence, the research was done in the context of developping soybean as a crop rotation of rice. The objective of the reseach were: (i) to identify the suitable area for soybean plantations in the rice field, (ii) to place the development of soybeans in the context of land use and socio-economic factors of the regency, and (iii) to plan the spatially soybean plantation. Several methodology were used in order to get an integrated manner of soybean plantation landuse planning. A soil survey and land evaluation for soybean plantations of the research area was done. Soil samples were taken for laboratory analysis. Land evaluation was done using Automated Land Evaluation System (Rossiter, 1997). The delineation of rice field area was done using IKONOS imagery. A dynamic system of soybean production and consumption was developped using Powersim 2.5 software. The factors which were taken into account in the dynamic system of soybean production and consumption include the result of soil survey, as well as the sosio-economic factors of soybean production and consumption. A spatial landuse planning was then developped, taking into account the soil information and scio-economic aspects. Results of the reseacrch indicate that in Karawang Regency, there were still a vaste area in paddy field plantation which are suitable for soybean plantation. The land suitability class vary from S1 (very suitable) to N1 (currently not suitable). More than 50% of the rice field cultivated area has a land suitability order for soybean, suitable. The limiting factors of this land were generaly nutrient retention and nutrient availability. According to the analysis of dynamic system of soybean, there are many factors that cause a decrease in soybean planting area in the region and in turn to lower production. The main cause is a lack of interest of farmers in planting soybean because of less supportive economic benefits. Based on such result, a spatial land use planning was then developped to delinate the priority area of soybean plantation in crop rotation with paddy. A suggestion in term of increasing the farmer’s interest in soybean plantation was also done.

Keywords

  • soil survey
  • land suitability
  • land characteristics
  • soybean production
  • soybean consumption