Carbon Footprint of Rice Production in Indonesia: An Analysis of National Statistics

Abstract

Estimating carbon footprint (CF) of rice production could administer an insight into the input of rice production to climate change and analysing possible greenhouse gas (GHG) alleviation alternatives. In this study, data for the rice production of 34 provinces in Indonesia at year of 2015 were gathered from the Indonesian statistical data on area cultivation, productivity, fertilizer application, diesel, and irrigated water. The CF of indirect and direct carbon emissions which were correlated with those agricultural intakes was calculated with reported emission factors. The result demonstrated the CFs mean in 34 provinces during dry and rainy season in Indonesia was 1,900,341.48 kg CO eq/ha and 1,892,825.68 kg CO eq/ha, respectively. The data also showed that the highest of CF production during dry and rainy seasons obtained by Belitung Islands and East Nusa Tenggara province, respectively. Meanwhile the lowest of CF production for both dry and rainy season belonged to Yogyakarta province. Result on the quantified agricultural intakes demonstrated the irrigation water usage, fertilizer usage, direct methane and diesel for agricultural tools, had biggest to lowest contribution to CF production, respectively. Based on the result, we concluded that a rice cultivation practices which has an efficient irrigation water usage may become an option to reduce CF that leads to climate change mitigation.