Including Agriculture and Climate Change in Progress for Reducing Disparity: Understanding and Addressing Exclusion among Subsistence Farmers

Abstraksi

This research paper aims to observe the competency of subsistence farmers (for maize and paddy) to increase their productivity in terms of agricultural food production by considering the effect of climate change and farmer’s knowledge on climate change accordingly across provinces in Eastern Indonesia. The main data sources are Agriculture Census 2013, which has been collected by BPS Statistics Indonesia as quantity of macro data; qualitative micro data obtained by field work and strengthen by literature studies. The observed variables are: socio-economic demography of farmers in Eastern Indonesia, GDP provinces by sector, export-import among provinces and severity of subsistence farmers’ condition. We have combined that data with data from BMKG on climate anomalies in Eastern Indonesia per year. The study finds a relation of the lack of subsistence farmer’s empowerment and knowledge on how to mitigate and adapt to the fluctuation of climate change phenomenon with agriculture and food production processes. The low-level production leads subsistence farmers become poorer, entrapped for debt and ultimately increasing inequality among farmers for having less-decent life. The nifty gritty on how agriculture production in the recent decades became under the threat of climate change effect and agriculture diseases attack, it raises action to propose the future perspective on formulation strategic innovations for policy intervention in order to boost productivity, reducing poverty and in simultaneously inclining inequality among provinces in Indonesia.