The role of soybean agroforestry in mitigating climate change in Indonesia

Abstract

Climate change is a global problem that has an impact on food production. Protein needs for people in developing countries such as Indonesia have not been fulfilled optimally. Indonesian people’s protein consumption is still at 65.7%, much lower than it should be. The development of soybean cultivation as a source of vegetable protein is very potential. This article aims to examine the role of soybean agroforestry to meet human protein needs and as an effort to mitigate climate change.In Indonesia, soybean development is constrained by people’s views; soybean is not the main crop and the rate of land conversion. An effort to overcome the limitation of optimum land according to the growing season is the development of soybean cultivation under forest stands as an agroforestry system. In Indonesia, there are production forests, including teak, pine, sengon, and resin, especially in teak, pine, and sengon forests, soybean cultivation with agroforestry systems has developed. The main obstacle to cultivation in the agroforestry system is low light due to the shade of the tree canopy. It requires efforts: tree spacing, especially between rows, trimming the tree canopy when the canopy is getting tighter, and low light tolerant plant varieties. Soybeans are low-light tolerant plants. The national average soybean production of about 1.5 tons ha-1 can be achieved in teak-based agroforestry systems up to 3-4 years old tree, pine-based up to 3 years old, and sengon-based up to 5 years old. The agroforestry system has the potential as land for the cultivation of organic plants in mitigating the impacts of climate change.