SAR Agriculture Rice Production Estimation (SARPE)

The study of SAR Agriculture Rice Production Estimation (SARPE) was held in Indonesia on 2012, as part of Asia-Rice Crop Estimation & Monitoring (Asia-RiCE), which is a component for the GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative. The study was expected to give a breakthrough result, by using radar technology and paradigm shift of the standard production estimation system from list frame to area frame approach. This initial product estimation system is expected to be refined (fine tuning) in 2013, by participating as part of Technical Demonstration Site (Phase -1A) of Asia-RICE. The implementation period of this initial study was from the date of March 12 to December 10, 2012. The implementation of the study was done by following the approach of the BIMAS-21 framework, which has been developed since 2008. The results of this study can be briefly divided into two major components, namely: Rice-field Baseline Mapping (PESBAK - Peta Sawah Baku) and Crop Growth Monitoring. Rice-fields were derived from the mapping results of the Ministry of Agriculture (Kemtan), and validated through Student Extension Campaign of the Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). While for the crop growth, it was derived from the results of image analysis process. The analysis was done, either on radar/Radarsat-2 (medium resolution) or optical/ MODIS (low resolution), based on the Planting Calendar (KATAM) of Kemtan. In this case, the planting season II/2012-2013 of rice production centers in West Java Province (Karawang, Subang and Indramayu counties). The selection of crop season and county were entirely dependent on the quality of the available PESBAK and procurement process of radar imagery. The PESBAK is still in the form of block instead of fields, so it can not be directly utilized in this study. Efforts to improve the PESBAK can not be optimal because the provided satellite image (ECW format) is not the original one. While the procurement process of SAR imageries, determine the target planting season to be linked. In this case the radar image only acquired two time series: the date of 26/10/2012 (stripmap) and 10/31/2012 (scanSAR) for series-1, and the date of 19/11/2012 (stripmap) and 11/24/2012 ( scanSAR) for series-2. The end result of this study is a model of crop growth status at the village, district and county level compared to KATAM. The County of Subang was used as a pilot exercise, and then was replicated into the two other counties (Karawang and Indramayu). Status of plant growth is divided into five phases: fallow wet, young vegetation, old vegetation, generative (pre-harvest), and dry fallow. The process of plant growth status was started with the determination of the majority in each rice field as a benchmark. This was followed by the creation of status recapitulation at the village, district, and ultimately at the county level. The county results were then compared with KATAM. Further replication to the rest of the other counties in the West Java Province, can only be done after the related PESBAK was improved in accordance to the area base standard requirement.