Land Use Planning for Paddy Field Development in Pandeglang Regency

Abstract

Food security is a big issue in Indonesia due to the availability of agricultural land caused by land conversion, especially in Java Island, is continually decreasing. Food security is the condition to meet food demand for the state to individuals, as reflected in the availability of sufficient food, both in quantity and quality, safe, diverse, nutritious, equitable, and affordable, and does not conflict with religion, belief, and culture of the community, to live a healthy life, active life, and productive in a sustainable manner. Therefore, the availability of agricultural land is one of the things that should be considered to ensure future food security, since agricultural land has a comprehensive function covering economic, social, and environmental aspects. However, the trend of agricultural land conversion in Java Island is very concerning. Several policies have been issued to tackle this problem, mainly LP2B (protected agricultural area) and the zoning regulation in spatial planning. However, further directives on these policies must also be formulated to give a further insight and some more comprehensive strategies on agricultural development. Pandeglang Regency is the largest rice production area in Banten Province, with the agricultural sector as the main economic activity in this region. Pandeglang Regency has potential in the agricultural sector, and agricultural land for food agricultural commodities, especially lowland rice, has the potential to be developed. Pandeglang Regency is also experiencing growth due to the enactment of Tanjung Lesung as a Special Economic Zone and various infrastructure development. However, the allocation and strategy for the agricultural area, especially rice/paddy fields, are still lacking and not detailed enough. Therefore, the analysis of the availability and needs of food land can be used to determine the minimum need for food land in Pandeglang Regency. This research aims to give directives on planning and development for the paddy field in Pandeglang Regency by giving an insight on its characteristics, availability, suitability, and potential in each region to be developed based on the spatial analysis result. The dynamics of land use change over the last 13 years in Pandeglang Regency are dominated by the increase of settlement areas, and the decrease of paddy field in contrast. The tradeoff between settlement and paddy field appears to be disproportional, where the rate of increase in settlement area is significantly bigger than the decrease of paddy field, meaning that the settlement area also converts other land uses as well. The other land uses experienced fluctuating change, such as plantation, shrubs, mix garden and bare land. Then this landuse trend are followed with CA-Markov prediction with business as usual (BAU) scenario. The prediction reached a good level of accuracy with kappa index of 0.89, with the end-year for land use prediction are set at 2031 following the year of spatial planning policy. Land use prediction using a CA-Markov method finds out that under BAU condition, settlement areas will continue to increase until the year 2031, with the rate of annual increase stays roughly the same. Meanwhile, the paddy field conversion in 2031 seems to have slowed down, following the 2012-2018 trend. It happened due to the implementation of LP2B policy, meaning that the conversion to settlement area also happens to other landuses. This trend of landuse change has caused the spatial planning policy to have an inconsistency level at around 25%. This inconsistency happens mostly at paddy field and settlement landuses, where the inconsistency in paddy field happens mainly due to the policy from Pandeglang's Department of Agriculture that wants to diversify the agricultural product to increase the regency's local product competitiveness. While the inconsistency of settlement area was mainly due to the invasive/conversive nature of settlement land use over agricultural-type land use. Both the high population growth and the ongoing construction of the Jakarta-Panimbang ring road in Pandeglang regency are the problems that will trigger an increase in the conversion of agricultural land to settlement. Therefore, due to those problems, paddy fields should be specially protected by the government to minimize conversion rates of agricultural lands. Pandeglang Regency’s food balance for rice also stayed as a surplus until the projected 2031 period. However, this surplus trend tends to decrease and will continue to decline if there are no efforts such as increasing rice production and developing land for better rice cultivation. The level of food surplus in Pandeglang Regency reached 2 times the level of consumption, indicating the crucial role of Pandeglang Regency as the main food production area in Banten Province. This condition is also supported by the land suitability, which is dominated mostly by moderately suitable (S2) land around 1965.5 ha (54.73%) of total available land (taken into account into 2031 prediction), which makes the paddy field needs to be protected and maintained properly. The spatial planning policy also needs an adjustment in terms of the placement/designation of its strategic area, mainly the strategic area of paddy field development as the focus of this research. Considering its potential, land availability, suitability, and socio-demographic aspects, several regions will be designated as the development priorities for the paddy field. These regions (sub-districts) are: Cadasari, Sumur, Cibaliung, Carita, and Cisata. Extensification and Intensification scenarios will also follow, especially in these regions. The planning recommendation also needs to consider strengthening zoning regulation to better protect the paddy field and other agricultural areas from land use change while keeping the Pandeglang Regency s one of the main food production Areas in Banten Province or even Indonesia.