Study of ENSO impact on agricultural food crops price as basic knowledge to improve community resilience in climate change

Abstract

Climate change has become an pivotal issue and impacted on the socio-economic community because it contributes not only to prolonged land droughts and fires in the dry season but also to increased rainfall and flooding in the wet season. One of the climate change phenomena in Indonesia is El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) consisting of El Nino and La Nina. The ENSO phenomenon drives rainfall variability that impacts on the agricultural sector which depends on water availability. The objective of this study was to analyse the impact of El Nino and La Nina on the prices of six agricultural food crops using static panel data. The data used consist of 23 provinces affected by El Nino and La Nina in 2010-2017. Rainfall is used as a proxy for El Nino and La Nina, supported by a negative and significant correlation between Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) and rainfall. The results showed that El Nino has greater impacts on food prices than La Nina by increasing the price of rice, sweet potato, and mung bean. While La Nina has a significant impact in increasing the price of cassava. Considering the importance of food crops for Indonesians, efforts can be made to improve community resilience, such as using adaptive varieties of climate, developing agricultural insurance, time and planting patterns adjustment and agroforestry patterns for communities nearby the forests in the framework of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Ultimately, this study can provide important insights to formulate effective mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize the climate change impact.