Challanges and Future Needs for Irrigation Management in Indonesia
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CHALLANGES AND FUTURE NEEDS FOR IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT IN INDONESIA Sigit Supadmo Arif1 and Murtiningrum2 ABSTRACT Irrigation can be viewed as a system with several subsystems which interact to its surroundings. Therefore changes from its environments may affect to irrigation system which requires adjustment in irrigation management. Human resources and instituion arrangements, food needs, infrastructure deterioration, and environment degradation challenge the irrigation management in Indonesia. In order to respond to the challenges, future needs include institution strengthtening, infrastructure development and rehabilitation, economic and financial policy, and irrigation-related reseaches. INTRODUCTION Water is an essential element for agriculture because water is used by crops for photosynthesis, nutrition transport, transporation, and so on which in turn make crops produce biomass for human need. Water is also used for creating favorable condition for land preparation. In Indonesia, which lays in a tropical monsoon region, rainfall is the main water source for agriculture. However, rainfall varies spatially and temporarily so that it sometimes cannot fulfill crop water requirement at the optimal time. Irrigation supply crop water requirement among variation of rainfall. In irrigation management, it is necessary to consider the specific characteristics of water resources. Water resource is a finite reources as the number of water in the world remain the same. Because of hydrologic cycle, water is considered as quasy renewable. Water is also a vulnerable resources because it is affected by its surrounding including its users. Therefore the abstraction of water for irrigation should take these characteristics into account. Besides for irrigation, water is required for many different purposes, functions and services. Holistic management, therefore, has to involve consideration of the demands placed on the resources and the threats to it. Holistic management involves the management of natural systems as well as human activities which create the demands for water, determine land uses and generate water borne waste products. In more and more complex life nowadays and in the future, irrigation management as part of water management is getting more challenging. This paper aims to reveal problems confronted in the future followed by alternatives to deal with them. MAIN COMPONENTS OF IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT An irrigation system is defined as human intervention to modify water resource spatially and temporary therefore all or a part of it can support crop growth and improve agricultural production (Small and Svensend, 1992). The definition implies that in irrigation human is an important factors in managing natural resources especially water. The Government Regulation No. 20/2006 on Irrigation explicitly stated that human resources is a part of irrigation system besides infrastructure, water, management, and institution of irrigation management (Anonimous, 2006). The purpose of irrigation management is to provide the best service for farmers to achieve optimum production. Irrigation management is a process in which water resources is allocated and utilized sustainabli and effectively in term of budget (Malano and van Hofwegen, 1999). Irrigation management can be focused on on three elements, namely water, physical structures, and social 1 Profesor, Department of Agriculture Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology 2 Lecture, Department of Agriculture Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology 1 organization. (Uphoff, 1986). The three irrigation elements interact to each other so that it is more simple to analysis each components followed by their interactions of the history of irrigation in Indonesia (van Setten van Meer, 1976 and Lombard, 1996) shows that irrigation is an important aspect of food supply although it is located in the tropical monsoon region with a lot of rain. Because it affects the livelihood of many people, irrigation has been a tool to strengthten the government political power. At some point, irrigation has became a critical aspect to determine the development of agricultural country (Arif, et al, 2010). Basically, the irrigation management consist of five elements, namely infrastructure, human resources and institutional, legal basic, financial and economic, and the environment (Burton, 2010). To deal with future challenge of irrigation management, recent performance of each component should be known and current constraints should be analyzed. Although there are some different among experts in categorizing irrigation elements, there is a similarity agreed that irrigation consists of multi elements. The elements interact to each other results in overall irrigation performance. The change or disturbance to one element of irrigation system may effect to other elements furthermore this result in the change of irrigation system as a whole. CHALLENGES OF IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT IN INDONESIA This part reveals the challenges of irrigation management in Indonesia in the future. The explanations are arranged according to the component of irrigation systems. Multi-Institution In the past, Indonesian irrigation development and management has always focused on the construction of irrigation infrastructure. However, the only successful infrastructure development without human development as the basis for community participation and development institutions may result in the unsustainability of irrigation system. Therefore, both Law No. 7 / 2004 on Water Resources and the Government Regulation No. 20/2006 on Irrigation requires participatory in the implementation of development and management of natural resources and irrigation. Although institution is considered as essential element and the central issue in irrigation management, policy of national irrigation institution development is absent. In the Government Regulation No. 20/2006 on Irrigation said that the asset management of irrigation consists of irrigation infrastructure and supporting assets. Both of the assets in the form of institutional support and human sumbardaya nirwijud is an asset. Policies on infrastructure asset management as a form of assets could have done but kebiujakan about nirwujud asset management has not been done. Currently irrigation development and management held by many institutions. At the national level task performed by at least five ministries, namely: The Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPENAS), The Ministry of Public Works (PU), The Ministry of Agriculture, The Ministry of Internal Affair, and The Ministry of Finance. Among those five ministries, none of them is designated as a leading sector, which coordinate all irrigation activities in Indonesia. The absence of the leading institution may leads on the lack of responsible institutions so that it will be difficult to determine the source of inappropriateness when it occurred. This was worsen by the absence of dialog forum to discuss about programs as well as to share any information to support to each other performances. In provincial and district levels, multi-institution has also taken place together with problem of unavailability of dialog forum. In addition, form of provincial and district offices which responsible to irrigation management are different among areas. This followed by various scopes of works, authority, and responsibility which may result in different performace of irrigation management. 2 Human Resources Some facts said that human resources is the weakest point in irrigation management recently. Althouth it is stated in the Government Regulation No. 20/2006, policy regarding human resource development and management is absent. Human resources is characterized by its numbers, distribution, education, and competency. Most of human resources in irrigarion management are civil servants and some others are non-permanent workers in field levels. Problem of human resources is related to retirement of many field staffs without proper recruitment recently. Moreover the new staffs receive inadequate trainings to do their daily jobs. In district levels, the local government sometimes rearrange the local staffs among departments without considering education and work experiences. This resulted in incompatibility between staff competencies and job requirements. Food Requirement Food is a basic requirement for every human to survive therefore fulfilling the food requirement become attention of the government. Indonesia is a big country with more than 237 million people (BPS, 2010) to be feed. The population number is increasing by 1,52% per year. Besides number of population, The food requirement depends also on job opportunity as measurement of access to food. The problem of fulfilling food requirement is the fact that food requirement increase faster than food availability. The food requirement increase as a resulted of population increase, economic growth, and dietary change. Food consist of food and drink from crops, livestocks, and fish both primary product and processed food. Food requirement is then stated by energy (kcal/capita/day) and protein (gr/capita/day). The minimum food requirement is 2500 kcal/capita/day and 55 gr/capita/day for energy and protein respectively (Suryana, 2005). Both sources of energy and protein in Indonesia are generally from rice as shown in Table 1. Although during the last 15 years, there has been a dietary change, Table 1 shows that rice has become the majority food source. Rice supplied more than 50% of energy and more