Soil Researchers throughout Southeast Asia Gathered at IPB
Water, soil and food had important role in supporting the human life. Already more than three decades of the exploitation of water and soil and also climate change had a major impact toward the food productivity mainly in developing countries in Southeast Asia including Indonesia. Moreover, Asia region is predicted to experience the extreme food crisis in 2025. To deal with the matter, the Department of Soil Science and Land Resources IPB in collaboration with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) held the Regional Workshop with the theme of “Water, Land and Southeast Asia Food Sovereignty”. The program was held at IPB International Convention Center. This program was attended by the students and the researchers of the countries throughout Southeast Asia like from Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Philippines, Belgium, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Australia.
Rector of IPB, Prof. Dr. Ir. Herry Suhardiyanto, when opening the program said that this workshop was the event to information sharing and research results related to water, soil and productivity of agriculture between Southeast Asia countries. Besides that according to the Rector it needed the strong commitment from all parties and all countries in Southeast Asia to face water crisis, soil crisis and food crisis at the moment. Moreover it was said by the Rector that the improvement of irrigation system was one important thing which should become the attention from all parties including the government.
Related to the irrigation, Ari Setiadi Moewarto from the Directorate General of Water Resource Ministry of Public Work RI said, recently the performance and sustainability of infrastructure irrigation tended to go down with the damage level of around 29% from 1999 to 2010. This condition was caused by the natural disaster, the soil experienced change, the lack of maintenance, and the increased sedimentation. In 2010, the Department from the public work detected that the current irrigation network was in a good condition, i.e. 48%, and the rest was in the damaged condition starting from small, medium, or heavy. Only 11% from the irrigation area was secured by the water supply from the reservoir with the total volume of 14 billion m3.
To manage this potential, Indonesia adopted the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management” (IWRM), or the integrated water resource management which was based on economic efficiency, equity, and environment preservation. Related to the cooperation with overseas, Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs RI, Suprapto Martosetomo, hoped that this Regional Workshop could offer policy and program to accelerate the implementation of cooperation framework in the food security of ASEAN Countries. (dh)
