Analysis and Development Direction of Food Agriculture Land in Muaro Jambi Regency

Abstract

Muaro Jambi is new regency in Jambi Province as resulted from regional development of Batanghari Regency in 1999. Its strategic geographical location, as the hinterland, established a closely dependency relationship to the province capital, i.e. Jambi City. Muaro Jambi Regency played a role as a food producer region, while Jambi City was as a core and market region. In order to anticipate the increasing food demand in line with the development of Jambi City as well as Muaro Jambi Regency, a comprehensive food agriculture development plan should be prepared. In this perspective, the existing food agriculture land in Muaro Jambi Regency must be maintained and even extensified. Efforts to increase food production through land extensification require land resources with specific biophysical conditions. Therefore, these efforts need to be supported by land suitability analysis and land resources allocation direction in order to synchronize with the land requirement for any other development sectors. This research aimed at to: (1) analyze landuse and land availability for food crop development in Muaro Jambi Regency, (2) analyze suitability of available land for food crop development in Muaro Jambi Regency, (3) determine leading food commodities in each subregency in Muaro Jambi Regency, (4) analyze food and land requirement until year 2031 in Muaro Jambi Regency, and (5) determine consistency of existing food crop landuses with spatial pattern plan for food crop land and arrange development direction of food agriculture land in Muaro Jambi Regency. This research was divided into seven stages of data analysis. Existing landuse was interpreted from Landsat 7 ETM imageries. Available land for food agriculture development was analyzed by not including existing peatland and peat forest moratorium, mining, forest, waters, Hak Guna Usaha (HGU), plantation and settlement areas. Land suitability analyses were conducted for eight food commodities, i.e. wetland rice, upland rice, corn, soybeans, peanuts, green beans, cassava and sweet potato. Leading commodity in subregency level was analyzed by using Location Quotient (LQ) and Differential Shift (DS) component in Shift Share Analysis (SSA) methods. Analysis of food and land requirement was done up to 2031 based on population, food consumption level and land productivity. Analysis of landuse consistency was conducted by overlaying map of existing landuse for food crop and map of spatial pattern plan for food crop in RTRW. Results of the preceding analyses were then synthesized to arrange direction for food agriculture land development by description method. The total land resource area in Muaro Jambi Regency was amounted to 532,165 ha. The dominant existing landuse was for plantations (310,280 ha; 58.31%). Lands amounted to 481,204 ha (90.42%) were identified as the existing areas of peatland and peat forest moratorium, forest, waters, mining, HGU, settlement and plantation. Parts of the existing wetland ricefields and upland agriculture were included in these areas. The available land for food agriculture development including the existing wetland ricefield, was identified to be 50,961 ha or 9.58% of the total land resource in Muaro Jambi Regency. The results of land suitability analysis of this available land showed areas amounted to 36,202 ha with S2 class (moderately suitable) for upland rice and S3 class (marginally suitable) for wetland rice, and 14,759 ha with S3 class for corn, soybeans, peanuts, green beans, cassava and sweet potato. The priority of food agriculture development was directed to wetland rice and upland rice because they were the main staple food. Subregency which had the most numerous leading commodities of upland food crops was Kumpeh Ulu which including corn, peanuts, cassava and sweet potato. Sekernan subregency has only soybeans as the leading commodity, while Kumpeh subregency had none. Without any land suitability class improvement, in order to achieve food self-sufficiency in 2031, it was required 11,093 ha wetland ricefield and 713 ha upland. In the spatial pattern plan of Muaro Jambi Regency, it was allocated land for food agriculture as amounted to 72,256 ha, which consisting of 6,208 ha wetland ricefield and 66,048 ha upland. By considering land requirement for food self-sufficiency in 2031, then it was required an addition of 4,885 ha wetland ricefield to the present spatial pattern plan. While, for upland agriculture, it was already in excess up to 65,335 ha so that it could be allocated for other landuses. The results of analysis of the present condition showed a 31,190 ha land which was not in accordance with the spatial pattern plan because it was used for other than food agriculture. Therefore, the spatial pattern plan for food agriculture in RTRW of Muaro Jambi regency was proposed to be revised.