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Agricultural industry

Indonesia Faces Significant Challenges in Meeting Food Security Targets due to Rice Field Loss

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Indonesia's struggle to maintain food security is exacerbated by the rapid loss of rice fields, which have been converted at an alarming rate of approximately 1.22 million hectares between 1990 and 2022. To address this issue, researchers developed a prediction model using geospatial technology to quantify ecosystem service impacts. The model, which incorporates land productivity attributes, specifically rice cropping intensity (RCI), demonstrates a high level of accuracy and robustness, predicting 1602.73 hectares of paddy fields to be lost within 2020-2030.

Key Takeaways:

  • Indonesia has lost approximately 1.22 million hectares of rice fields between 1990 and 2022, posing significant challenges to meeting food security targets.
  • Researchers developed a prediction model using geospatial technology to quantify ecosystem service impacts, incorporating land productivity attributes, specifically rice cropping intensity (RCI).
  • The model, which uses a Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network and Markov Cellular Automata (MLP-NN Markov-CA) algorithms, achieved an accuracy of 83.90% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.91.
  • The study predicted 1602.73 hectares of paddy fields to be lost within 2020-2030, with 61.18% (980.54 hectares) and 38.82% (622.19 hectares) attributed to RCI and 1 RCI, respectively.
  • The loss of rice fields directly threatens ecosystem services, resulting in a projected loss of 83,697.95 tons of rice production, indicating a critical degradation of service provisioning.
  • The findings provide actionable insights for land use planning to reduce agricultural land conversion while highlighting the urgency of safeguarding ecosystem values.
  • The adopted method is applicable to regions with similar characteristics, demonstrating its potential for use inidentifying and mitigating environmental degradation.

Statistics:

  • Approximately 1.22 million hectares of rice fields have been lost in Indonesia between 1990 and 2022.
  • The prediction model achieved an accuracy of 83.90% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.91.
  • 1602.73 hectares of paddy fields are predicted to be lost within 2020-2030.
  • 61.18% (980.54 hectares) of the predicted loss is attributed to 2 RCI, while 38.82% (622.19 hectares) is attributed to 1 RCI.
  • A projected loss of 83,697.95 tons of rice production is expected as a result of the loss of rice fields.

Sources:

  • Advancing Land Use Modeling with Rice Cropping Intensity: A Geospatial Study on the Shrinking Paddy Fields in Indonesia. Geographies, 2025,5(3):31. (https://doi-org.sdpl.idm.oclc.org/10.3390/geographies5030031)
  • NewsRx. Researchers from National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Detail Research in Rice Crops (Advancing Land Use Modeling with Rice Cropping Intensity: A Geospatial Study on the Shrinking Paddy Fields in Indonesia). Journal of Engineering. October 13, 2025; p 4002.

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