International Seminar on Climate Change and Food Security, 2013
(ISCCFS 2012)
Palembang,
South Sumatra-Indonesia, 25 October, 2013
Lazarus Dawa 1
1 University
of Sriwijaya, Palembang, Indonesia
Abstract.
Indonesian imports of soybean
represents a share of 2 percent of the total soybean traded in the world. Due to deficit in domestic soybean production
, over 80 percent of it must be imported to meet the high demand of soybean
based food and oil. Changing climatic
conditions of increasing atmospheric temperature, accumulating level of
carbondioxide, and varying rainfalls will alter soybean yields in the major
producing regions. According to projection, USA, Brazil and Argentina will
still lead in production of soybean up to 2020.
Various study have demonstrated yield decrease up to 40 percent in the
major producing areas under different climate change scenarios. Since Indonesia
imports over half of the total soybean needed to meet its yearly consumption, it
is very vulnerable to world price volatility and poses threat to food security. Lack of recognizing future threats and
responding through effective interventions can lead to food insecurity and
increase in malnutrition problems in the country.
Keywords: Soybean, climate
change, nutrition, food security.
1. Background
Soybean is one of the food commodities that has
profound significance to the livelyhood of Indonesian people. It provides an affordable and rich source of
plant protein that is accessible to the majority of the population. Over half of the household in Indonesia
consumed tempeh and tofu which are produced from soybean [1]. The imports of
soybean to indonesia was about 1.2 million metric tonne in 2011 [2]. It was reported that in 2012 and 2013, soybean
import will be over 80 percent to meet the domestic demand [3]. In addition to consumption, producers of
major foods from soybean especially tempeh and tofu benefit through marketing
of the food. Soybean therefore is
important in maintaining welfare and food security in Indonesia. The changing world climatic conditions, will
affect soybean production that may
result in adverse effect to consumers and other users of soybeans. Loss of productivity due to extreme climatic
conditions will cause soybean supply to decline, a limited supply and high
demand will force price to escalate.
High price will reduce soybean accessibility for processors and limit
consumption by end users.
The
aim of this paper are to review impact of climate change on yield of soybean in
the largest exporting soybean nation and provide a discussion on the possible
implications it will have on food and nutrition security in Indonesia.
2. Literature Review
2.1 World
production and consumption of soybean
Soybean
is traded in world for its oil, as food, soymeal for supplement in animal feeds
and biofuel production. The major producing countries of soybean in the world
are USA, Brazil and Argentina that supplied almost 90 percent of the total
soybean in the world market [4,5]. Production trends for the 3 countries are
displayed in Figure 1, showing soybean yields over the years up to 2012.
Figure 1: Soybean production trends in 3 major producing countries. Source: Faostat, 2013.
The
2011 yield of soybean in USA was 8 percent less than in 2010 due lower planting
and yield loss by weather changes .
Competition of land by other crops such as maize also account for the
decrease in harvest yield [6]. Indonesian imports of soybean is amongst the top
10 in the world, and occupies about 2 percent of the total soybean import
[2]. China still remains the largest
importer of soybeans on world market. It
was forcasted that from 2010-2020 U.S soybean production will remain near flat
due to limited hectares available for cultivation, while Brazil and Argentina
are expected to increase soybean exports to satisfy world demand [4].
2.2 Soybean supply
and utilization in Indonesia
The
soybean supply in Indonesia is derived from both domesic production and
imports. Over half of the total soybean
demand in indonesia is met from imports.
In 2011/2012 the country’s domestic production was less by 30,000 MT
compared to the 2010/2011 production at 650 000 MT. The import of soybean in
period of 2011/2012 was 1.922MMT which marked an increase of 1.26 percent than
the previous period. Amost 88 percent of soybean supply in indonesia are used
for making tempeh and tofu [7]. The
major imports of soybean in indonesia is from USA about 90 percent while
remainding fraction come from Argentina, Malaysia and other producing countries
[8].The estimated per capita consumption annually for tempeh and tofu is 8.5
and 7.8 kg/cap/year respectively [1].
The soybean consumption increased from 8.13 in 1998 to 8.94kg/cap/year
in 2004 while local production of soybean had been declining since 2009 from
97,000 tonnes to 85,000 tonnes in 2012 [5].
2.3 Climate change
effect on soybean production
Among
other factors the main contributor of climate change is due to anthropogenic
emission of green house gases (GHG) especially carbon dioxide, methane and
nitrous oxide. The agriculture sector is
vulnerable to changes in temperature, precipitation and carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere [9].
Higher temperatures affect plant health, increase prevalence of pests
and reduce water available in plants through rapid rate of evapo transpiration. Varying rainfall patterns decrease water
availability and have negative consequences for both rainfed and irrigated
farming systems while increased level of carbondioxide may improve crop yield
in some regions [10] The growth and productivity of crops can be either
positively or negatively affected by climate change. In elevated CO2 concentration free
aircarbon experimented study (FACE) showed 15-25% increase in yield of C3
crops (wheat, rice, soybean) and 5-10% in C4 crops (maize, sorghum,
sugarcane). High level of CO2
also increase the water use efficience of the C3 and C4 plants. While other studies demonstrated that
increase level of CO2 showed less favorable crop response [11]. Crop
modeling study under increasing atmospheric temperature of 1-3oC
were demonstrated to have less beneficial changes on crop production in
temperate regions and negative yield impact of crops in tropical regions under
increase atmospheric level and varrying rainfalls [12].
A non
linear projection of soybean under temperature range from 29-30oC
showed yield increase with rising temperature, however temperaure over 30oC
reduce soybean yield [13]. Changes in temperature during summer period was shown
to affect soybean production and variation in rainfall pattern during planting
and phase of development also affect soybean yield in Southern Brazil
[14]. Water stress during early
reproduction and seed filling stage was found to accelerate senescence leading
to early maturity and low yield of soybean up to 10-23 percent [15]. Climate
change was predicted to affect yield in the 3 major exporting countries of
soybean. The impact is presented in the
Table 1, below under different climate change scenarios [16].
Table 1: Impact of climate change on soybean yield (%) under different
climate change scenarios.
 |
| Source: Adams et al. 1998 |
The
data in Table 1, showed decline in yield for soybean in Argentina and Brazil
while for USA the change in yield will vary across the region. This data presented important implications
for importing countries because according to forcast, Brazil, USA and Argentina
will still lead in exporting of soybean up to 2020.
3. Discussion
Under changing
climate condition and competition of land by other crops, soybean production in
the major growing and exporting countries like USA, and Brazil had and will
experienced decline in harvested yield.
Since agricultural commodities prices are greatly influenced by the
large producers, sudden price hikes can have severe repercussion on importing
countries. The decline in soybean production in exporting countries and the weakening
of the Rupiahs against U.S Dollar have seen the price of soybean soar.
In addition Indonesian policy on self sufficiency and imposing of tarrif
on imported soybeans has badly affected the tofu and tempeh industry in the
nation. Local price upsurge of soybean
products can have significant impact on tofu and tempeh accessibility and
utilization. A study conducted on global price volatility of soybean had shown
to have poverty consequences in Indonesia.
Increase of world price of soybean by 20, 40 and 60 percent directly
caused the domestic price of soybean to rise by 11.5, 22.1 and 30.1 percent
respectively. These increase in prices
correspond with increase in poverty index by 0.132, 0.204 and 0.296 as well
[17]. Increase poverty is linked to food
insecurity and exacerbate malnutrition problems. Poor household spend more than half of their
total expenditure on food and with food price increase, can have signicant
drawbacks on their nutrition and welfare [18].
For instance another study of rice price crisis in 1990 in Indonesia
caused increase in maternal wasting because some mothers in poverty
marginalized household deliberately reduced their energy intake in order to
feed their children [19].
Tempeh
and tofu production occupy a thriving market in indonesia pertaining to the
high demand and local preference of the food that is part of the traditional
society. Soybean based food provide an
affordable source of protein that majority of population in Indonesia can have
access to meet their dietary requirement of protein. The average consumption of legume food is
approximately 9g/cap/day compared to fish which is 13g/cap/day making legumes
the second most available consumed protein source. Decrease in soybean supply can lower the
daily intake of protein and other micronutrients essential for promoting health
and protection against diseases.
Producers of tempeh and tofu will suffer loss of income as price hike
force consumers to limit their soybean based food intakes. Deficiency in
soybean will also affect other food production activities that utilize soybean
meal for animal and fish feeds and soybean oil for food products.
If soybean
on world supply falls then there will be deficit in demand since the current
local production of soybean is insufficient.
If only domestic production of soybean is increased to meet over half of
the total demand than it can relieved dependency on imports. Currently lack of incentives and competition
of soybean from imports impede local production. The government to set floor price for local
production can boost and motivate farmers to increase hectare of
cultivation. In order to increase local
supply of soybean will mean expansion of current land area available to
increase yield. Land expansion must fall
in line with climate mitigation strategies of reducing clearing of new forest. Crop rotation on current land used for
growing rice and maize can alleviate need for further land expansion.
The
government response to high price by waivering of import tarriff barrier was
shown to have little effect on improving poverty by only 0.059 percent or
decrease in number of people living in poverty by only 12,3275. Intervention to
remove tariff from imported soybeans during external price shock can be
beneficial if only the world price increase is below 10 percent. [17].
4. Conclusion
Agriculture production is
vulnerable to effect of climate change that will impact food security, leading
to
increase number of hunger people and malnutrition as a
result of
collapse food system. Food production
will become
a challenge for the
world to
achieve under
adverse
changing
environmental conditions, increasing population pressure and degrading land and natural resources.
Indonesian dependancy on soybean imports posses a threat to food security
with volatility in world soybean price.
Building resilience to future effect of
climate change on major food commodities like soybean is an essential step
forward towards adaptation. Government
investment into boosting local production by encouraging local farmers through
incentives, introduction of improved technology can stimulate interest into
increase farming of soybeans. Increase
domestic production can relieve dependency on imports and reduce risk to food
insecurity during world price upsurge.
5. References
[2] FAOSTAT, (2011). World top soybean imports
2011. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome, Italy.
[3] Siahaan, T. S., (2013). Indonesia to
subsidize local soybean production, Jakart Globe, September 17, 2013. [Online].
Available at: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/indonesia-to-subsidize-local-soybean-production/.
[4] Taylor, R. D., and Koo, W. W., (2011).
2011 Outlook of the US and World Corn and Soy bean Industries, 2010-2020.
Agribusiness and Applied Economics Report No. 682. North Dakota, USA.
[5] FAOSTAT, (2013).Indonesia soybean
production 2013 . Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Rome, Italy.
[6] Food and Agriculture Organizations of the
United Nations (2011). Food Outlook 2011: Global Market analysis. Rome,
Italy,pp. 6-121. Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/al978e/al978e00.pdf
[7] Slette, J., and Wiyono, I, E, (2013). Indonesia oilseed and products update 2013.
US Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, Global Agriculture
Information Network Report No. ID1307, May 2013. Available at: http://usdaindonesia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Oilseeds-and-Products-Update_Jakarta_Indonesia_2-5-2013.pdf.
[8] Iswadi, (2013). Lesson learned from the soybean cultivation
in the U.S. Jakarta Globe, September 12,
2013 [Online]. Available at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/09/12/lesson-learned-soybean-cultivation-us.html.
[9] Lotze-Campen, H., Yadav, S., S., Redden,
R.J., Hatfield J.L, Hall, A., E. (2011). Climate change, populaiton growth and
crop production: An overview, John Wiley and Sons, Oxford, U.K.
[10] Food and Agricuture Organization of the
United Nations (2011). Global action on climate change in agriculture: Linkages
to food security, markets and trade policies in developing countries. FAO,
Rome.
[11] Long, S. P., Ainsworth, E. A., Leakey, A.
D., B., Nosberg, J., Ort, D. R.(2006). Food for thought: Lower- than- expected
crop yield stimulation with rising CO2 concentration. Science, 312, pp
1918-1921.
[12] IPCC (2007). Climate change 2007. Synthesis Report.
Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland. pp
104.
[13] Schlenker, W., and Roberts, M.J., (2008).
Non linear temperature effects indicates severe damage to U.S crop yields under
climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America, 106 (37), pp. 15594 -15595.
[14] Ferreira, D. B., and Rao, V. B.,
(2011). Recent climate variability and
its impact on soybean yields in Southern Brazil. Theor. Appl. Climotol. 105.
83-87.
[15] Brevedan, R. E., and Egli, D. B., (2003).
Short periods of water stress during seed filling, leaf senescence, and yield
of soybean. Crop Science, 43 (6), pp. 2083-2088.
[16] Adam, R., M., Hurd, B., Lenhart, S.,
Leary, N., (1998). Effects of global
climate change on agriculture: an interpretive review. Climate Research, 11,
pp. 19-30. Available at: http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/11/c011p019
[17] Dartanto, T., and Usman, (2011).
Volatility of world soybean prices, imports tariff and poverty in Indonesia, A
CGE microsimulation analysis. The Journal of Applied Economic Research, 5 (2),
pp 139-181
[18] Food and Agriculture Organizations of the
United Nations (2008). State of Food and Agriculture 2008. Rome, Italy, pp.
72-86. Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0100e/i0100e00.htm
[19] Block, S. A., Keiss, L., Webb, P., Kosen,
S., Monech-Pfanner, R., Bloem, M., W., Timmer, C.P., (2004). Macro shocks and
Micro outcomes: Child nutrition during Indonesia crisis. Economics and Human
Biology, 2, (1). 21-24.
No comments:
Post a Comment