Land and water management of tidal lowlands: Experiences in Telang and Saleh, South Sumatra

Indonesia has available over 20 million ha of tidal lowlands. In their natural state these are generally waterlogged areas that may be regularly inundated for prolonged periods. Almost 4 million ha of these tidal lowlands have been reclaimed, partly by spontaneous settlers and partly by the government. While the reclaimed areas mainly consist of clay and especially the government schemes have a rational layout, they generally have a good potential for agricultural development, with a rice crop in the wet season and a second rice crop, or a dry food crop, in the dry season. For successful tidal lowland management there is, however, a need for an integrated approach, based on effective water management in combination with adequate farming systems technology and post-harvest activities. In order to investigate and promote such an integrated approach the programme Land and Water Management Tidal Lowlands (LWMTL) was implemented in the period 2004–06 in three pilot areas in the Musi delta, South Sumatra. It turned out that high yields of field dry husked rice (gabah) up to 8 t ha−1 could be obtained. The paper gives an overview of the programme and the main results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.