IPB Develops Climate Smart Rice Seeds

Photo: Doc. Antara

JAKARTA - PT Botani Seed Indonesia, a company owned by IPB University, is developing climate smart rice seeds that can reduce the need for fertilizers and water so that it can reduce the cost of rice care.

"Smart climate seeds have high productivity but low cost because the use of fertilizer is less and the use of water is more efficient," said Director of PT Botani Seed Indonesia Dadang Syamsul Munir at a press conference on Agribusiness Innovation through Climate Smart Agriculture in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, June 19.

He said climate change and food vulnerability are big challenges for the agricultural sector, especially rice and corn as the most important plants in Indonesia. These advantages make our innovation seeds more adaptive to climate change because they are able to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions production.

Disruption of the two sectors will cause shocks in the community and threats to national development targets.

Climate smart agriculture is a solution in developing agriculture that is able to adapt to climate change. In this case, agribusiness plays an important role in boosting agricultural innovation that is able to reduce GRK emissions while increasing farmers' resilience to climate change.

Agribusiness involvement in climate smart agriculture constructively can also support the government to meet the national target of reducing carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, the form of climate smart agriculture carried out by PT Agrotama Tunas Sentosa (ATS) is the development of organic mineral-based fertilizer products that are environmentally friendly and can reduce the production of methane gas and sell it with the GPS brand (Gypsum Polyhalie Silica).

Director of PT Agrotama Tunas Sarana Eddyko explained, this environmentally friendly fertilizer comes from shells of diatomic shells and sediments that are mined without chemical processes so that it is safer for plants and the environment.

This fertilizer contains secondary macro nutrients that can help improve health and plant products as well as repair and maintain soil fertility. The use of this fertilizer is also able to neutralize soil acidity so as to inhibit the growth of metnanogenic bacteria that produce methane gas," explained Eddyko.

Eddyko added that ATS collaborates with key onion farmers and the North Sumatra Agriculture Service in encouraging the adoption of the use of mineral-organic-based commercial fertilizers that can increase yields and also improve soil conditions and suppress environmental pollution.