Keeping Land Alive Without Fire

Kompas/Rhama Purna Jati

A farmer in Bukit Batu village, Air Sugihan district, Ogan Komering Ilir regency, South Sumatra, carries a corn seed planter on his farm, Thursday (24/8). Farmers in the village no longer clear land by fire but have reorganized land management so that the land can still be planted and to reduce the potential of land fires.

Mujiono, 32, from Bukit Batu village in Air Sugihan district, Ogan Komering Ilir regency, South Sumatra, was cutting the grass that grew between the 50-centimeter-tall corn plants in his fields on Thursday (24/8/2017). The grass will be used as feed for his three cows.

Mujiono gathered the grass with enthusiasm, as he had just made Rp 18 million (US$1,352.16) from selling one of his cows. The cows also produce manure for fertilizing his crops. As a result, his cornfield produces between 3 tons and 4 tons of corn per hectare, earning him Rp 12 million.

He plants corn twice a year and rice once in rotation. However, unlike the corn, Mujiono only harvests 900 kilograms of rice from each hectare during the four months he grows the crop. “This year, the paddy is infested with pests and the rice did not earn a significant profit,” he said.

Nevertheless, Mujiono maintains his rice-corn-corn annual crop rotation. He does this to prevent his land from becoming idle and being overtaken by weeds. If neglected, weeds of up to 2 meters tall can cover the fields and re-clearing it will be difficult.

By practicing crop rotation, only short weeds emerge occasionally and these can be easily eradicated with herbicide. “As the weeds can be composted together with post-harvest residue, I can use it to fertilize the land ahead of the next crop planting,” he said.

No burning

Using this cultivation method, Mujiono does not need to burn the land to clear it at the start of a planting season. He said that burning land would kill nutrients in the soil. “The worms and nutritious bacteria will all be killed in the fire,” he said.

In the beginning, as with many other farmers in Bukit Batu and other villages in South Sumatra, Mujiono used fire to clear his land at the start of each planting season. After participating in a training held by the government and PT Bumi Andalas Permai, which manages a concession area near his home, he learned how to manage farmland without resorting to the slash-and-burn technique.

However, not all Bukit Batu farmers practice the rice-corn-corn crop rotation. Farmer Masudi, 39, still burns his land to clear it. He said that it was effective, quick and easy. He needs Rp 5 million per hectare to clear land using herbicides; burning requires only Rp 3 million.

Masudi stressed that he burned his land extra-carefully to prevent the fire from spreading beyond the area he intends to clear. “We install firebreaks to prevent the fire from spreading during the land clearing,” he said.

Using fire to clear land is also common practice among the Dayak Kanayatn people of Lingga village, Kubu Raya regency, West Kalimantan, who still practices the local custom of swidden agriculture. Nevertheless, they address the natural balance through risk management.

The Dayak Kanayatn choose arid land instead of peatlands for clearing by fire. Peatland fire is dangerous, as it difficult to put out and can cause haze. They also clear only 2 hectares of land at a time. Before burning the land, they gather trash from a radius of 5 meters around the selected plot to prevent the fire from spreading. During the burning stage, the farmer’s family and other villagers stand guard around the plot to monitor the fire and keep it under control.

“With these efforts, the land clearing fires have never spread. About two hours after burning, the smoke will also be gone,” Lahama, 68, the Tuha Tahutn, or the community elder in charge of the farming cycle, said on Saturday (23/8).

Lahama said the government had socialized a farming scheme that did not involve burning, by composting logging waste and residue on the land to be cleared. However, it was difficult to estimate how much time the decomposition will take. If the wood waste is big enough, composting could take several years.

Solution

The South Sumatra Forest and Peatland Fires task force has come up with a solution to use BIOS 44, an organic agricultural bio-agent produced through the symbiosis of effective microorganisms (EM). Research shows that BIOS 44 can normalize soil acidity levels to increase the fertility of agricultural lands, including rainfed rice fields and seasonal farmland.

The product can accelerate the decomposition of organic materials on peatlands, by saturating and closing peatland cavities with secretions produced by EM. The aim is to prevent the peatland from burning.

The product is an innovation of the Garuda Dempo 044 resort military command’s research laboratory under South Sumatra’s Sriwijaya II regional military command. Garuda Dempo 044 operations head Maj. Andik Siswanto said that BIOS 44 had been applied to a number of agricultural lands and peatlands, including a rainfed rice field in Gelebak Dalam village, Rambutan district, Banyuasin.

The use of BIOS 44 can increase local farmers’ rice production from 4.8 tons per hectare to 5.6 tons per hectare, so is hoped to encourage farmers to abandon the habit of burning land to clear it. “Using BIOS 44, people need only to set a fee for laborers[to clear vegetation]. BIOS 44 can be obtained for free at the nearest resort military command,” Andik said.