Climate Change Impact on Paddy Yield in Indonesia: Farmers' Experience based on the 2021 Crop-Cutting Survey's Results

Climate change is a critical issue for food insecurity in many countries. It can disrupt food availability since it potentially results in the reduction of agricultural yield and eventually threatens smallholder farmers' livelihood and food security in the future. In the context of Indonesia, paddy cultivation, as one of the primary crop commodities, is also prone to climatic issues, such as floods and drought. However, to our knowledge, studies examining climate change's impact on the yield of paddy utilizing the nationwide survey in Indonesia are still limited. Hence, this study aims to assess the impact of climate change on the wetland and dryland paddy yield in Indonesia. In doing so, we applied a logistics regression to the 2021 Indonesian Crop-Cutting Survey results. The survey is conducted annually by Indonesian Statistical Agency (BPS) to obtain the yield data and information related to farmers' perceptions of climate change's impact on yield. After applying a logistics model to 50,619 wetland paddy crop samples and 1,081 dryland paddy crop samples, we found that paddy growers experiencing events resulting from climate change are more likely to have a higher probability of experiencing a decrease in their paddy yield than those who did not experience them, which is 2.23 times higher for wetland paddy and 1.77 times higher for dryland paddy. Besides, an incline in pest attack intensity and water insufficiency are also found to impact paddy yield reduction significantly. Further, based on kernel density distribution between groups of farmers, our finding pointed out that the yield of farmers affected by climatic issues, experiencing an increase in pest attacks, and facing water shortage, is slightly to the left of the opposite groups, which means that they are significantly lower than those unaffected. To conclude, this finding confirms that climate change, pest attacks, and insufficient avail water play a non-negligible role as yield-reducing factors in Indonesia's wetland and dryland paddy production. Thus, the mitigation of climate change impact, better strategy for pest control, and improved water management in paddy cultivation are essential to maintaining paddy production's sustainability.