22 Apr 2022

Project

Low Carbon Rice: Reducing climate impact of rice production in Indonesia

Rice feeds half of the world’s population on a daily basis, but it is also an essential driver of global warming. It constitutes around 2.5% of all global human-induced GHG emissions, so its climate footprint is comparable to that of international aviation.

Challenges

Indonesia is the third-largest rice producer worldwide. At the same time, rice producers are among the most vulnerable to climate change. They struggle with drought, floods, high temperatures and rising sea levels, which are direct threats to their livelihoods.

Some of the main challenges rice millers face include:

The lack of access to financing for improved technology
The lack of awareness and technical knowledge on sustainable rice production methods
Inability to ensure higher prices for sustainable rice despite government control over price and exports and
Underdeveloped business models for new income streams from verified sustainable rice, sale of rice straw and carbon credits from avoided emissions.

The rice millers are also highly affected by climate change. Twenty million hectares of rice fields are prone to floods. Another 20 million ha are exposed to drought. Rice cultivation uses 40% of the world’s freshwater in an irrigated lowland production system (the type of system used by most rice farmers in Java, Indonesia).

What is more, agrochemicals in rice cultivation are overused, which causes further deterioration of water quality, ecosystem integrity and human health.

Beneficiaries

Despite the concerns about rice production on the farm level, this project will mainly work directly with rice millers to address the challenges they face. At the same time, engagement with smallholder farmers is also planned at the advocacy level and policy dialogue for sustainable rice production.

Direct beneficiaries:

150 small scale rice millers (SME) in five districts in East Java and Central Java, Indonesia (it derives from engagement with ten farmer group associations with 900 farmers in five districts in East Java and Central Java, Indonesia)

Indirect beneficiaries:

Indonesian government
Private sectors
Finance sectors
Indonesian population; and the global population.

Objectives

The project’s key objective is to reduce the climate impacts of rice through the adoption of sustainable rice production (non-farm level). More specifically, the objectives include:

Enabling conditions and supporting policies for sustainable rice production created through the facilitation of policy dialogue
Development of a more inclusive sustainable rice sector governance model through multi-stakeholder facilitation
Enhancing market access opportunities for sustainable rice through facilitation of private sector engagement
Expanding access to finance opportunities for rice producers through technical assistance and new business models and
Communicating a well-managed project that reaches its objectives and ensures the best use of available resources to stakeholders.

According to Climate Home News, rice production is estimated to be responsible for 12% of total methane global emissions, mainly due to its anaerobic decomposition during its production processes. Farmers in Java, Indonesia typically use more than 1,400 litres of water to produce just 1kg of rice. Due to this immense water use, freshwater availability for human consumption, aquatic ecosystems and other uses is vastly reduced, contributing to increasing water conflicts. Hence, its production comes with a high price for the climate and environment. Yet entire regions depend highly on this staple food, and so does Indonesia, where rice is crucial for the country’s kitchen, culture and economy.

The Low Carbon Rice project, executed by Preferred by Nature in cooperation with Koalisi Rakyat untuk Kedaulatan Pangan (KRKP or people’s coalition on food sovereignty) and Perkumpulan Penggilingan Padi dan Pengusaha Beras Indonesia (PERPADI or Indonesian association of rice millers and traders), funded by EU SWITCH-Asia grant programme, is a response to the negative impacts of rice production in Indonesia.

The project seeks to minimise the impact rice production has on the climate by implementing sustainable production methods at the post-harvest level. Policy dialogue with relevant Indonesian authorities on the national and district level and strengthening the institutional capacity of stakeholders on sustainable rice will also play an essential part in the project activities.

The solution and way forward

To achieve those objectives mentioned above, the plan is to fulfil the following activities in the implementation process:

Introduce SMEs rice millers to sustainability concepts and benefits and develop a sustainable rice business model
Provide capacity building targeted toward the needs of each specific set of stakeholders
Provide technical assistance to support switch rice milling operations to more sustainable methods
Provide and facilitate rice miller access to new markets and new finance mechanisms to encourage uptake of sustainable methods
Coordinate with all key stakeholders to build sustainable approach
Facilitate policy dialog to enable sustainable rice to be recognised and sold
Develop production policy and guidance on sustainable rice partnership model and strengthen the institutional capacity of stakeholders on sustainable rice at the district level
Develop standard, criteria and indicators for the Indonesia Sustainable Rice platform
Baseline study to determine GHG emissions from rice production in five districts; study repeated at project end.

The planned outcomes are the ability of rice millers to produce rice at a lower cost with high productivity with the support from the supply chain actors in Java and increasing the production of sustainable rice with the reduced environmental footprint of its cultivation.

The project facilitates the pathway to reduce GHG emissions, thus tackling climate change and correlating the big issue of global warming.