Geophytes cultivation dilemma in Indonesia: Climate change disaster mitigation, investment, and impact on the environment

Abstract

Climate change affects farming activities, leading to a greater impact on food security. Indonesia has the potential for a wide variety of geophytes that can be utilized for food security. However, geophytes are underutilized crops, and our staple food is still dominated by rice. This study aims to explore the potential and obstacles in geophytes development for strengthening food resilience in Indonesia. The methods used in this research were surveying and interviewing 30 “porang” and “beneng” taro farmers between January 2022 to April 2022 to determine the potential of tuber development and its market regarding climate change. The research was carried out in Ciamis and Tasikmalaya Regency, West Java, Indonesia. The result shows that geophytes are low maintenance which helps in reducing GHG emissions. Unlike grains, geophytes are commonly shade-tolerant, more tolerant to drought stress, and resilient on marginal land. However, the difficulties in the geophytes crops development are the unstable prices, and the market sometimes is still very segmented and obscure. Meanwhile, to start planting geophytes on a large scale has an environmental problem and a significant investment risk for farmers, especially farmers with limited land and capital. Therefore, enrichment of geophytes planting under the state land stands may be an option for mitigating climate change and overcoming food security.