Vulnerability Assessment on Agriculture in East Nusa Tenggara

Abstract

Despite the region’s vulnerability, climate change adaptation strategies in poor contexts such as Asia are limited. A vulnerability assessment was conducted in one of the poor areas of Indonesia, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Province. The study demonstrates the future of the NTT agricultural sector, focusing on estate crops, particularly coffee. The assessment applied a three-domain function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity based on (1) climate data and land suitability; (2) the commodity production data; and (3) socioeconomic, policy, and institutional context, respectively. This study utilises climate data from as the exposure and the land suitability projection (the sensitivity) was obtained from modelling by Matlab and ArcGIS. As a semi-arid region, the viability of NTT’s agricultural lands is projected to decline due to increasingly prominent climate-change impacts. The result showed divergent temperature rises and precipitation patterns across the islands. Consequently, the suitable land would gradually decline for all estate crops in the region; hence, bringing these farmers out of vulnerability requires multi-prolonged climate-resilient agricultural practices. In addressing climate change, this study gives a holistic recommendation to increase the adaptive capacity by strengthening extension support, crops diversification, institutional change, added-value-chain, and the co-finance should be considered in the poor context like NTT province.