Food security prospects of rural community in the change and degraded peatland landscape of South Sumatra

Abstract

There has been a dramatical change in Indonesia’s tropical peatland ecosystem in the last three decades due to various causes and climate change issues. This decreases the function of peatland ecosystem to support ecosystem balance and the rural livelihoods, including influencing the food systems. This paper highlights the prospects of food security in the changed and degraded peatland landscape in South Sumatra. A case field study was conducted in this research, followed by qualitative analysis. Peatland degradation, mainly from peatland conversion, illegal logging, and recurrent fires, lead to the decline of food availability from the peatland, such as, fish, honey bee, vegetable, and fruit. To deal with, several field actions are taken: (1) Local initiative in vegetable and fruit production on degraded peatland; (2) Government initiative in developing rice fields as part of food estate program; (3) Community, non-government organization (NGO) and government collaboration in introducing adaptive and prospective agroforestry. More prospective food security on the peatland can be achieved through the commodity diversification, improvement of the techniques, infrastructures, market access, and capacity of rural community. Harmonizing the policies between peatland management and food estate potentially can improve food security in tropical peatland landscape in Indonesia.