ABSTRACT
Food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia is increasingly promoted as a renewable energy resource, often framed as abundant crop “waste” that can be converted. This paper explicitly focuses on crop residues from food-crop agriculture—such as rice, maize, and other staple crops—and deliberately excludes biomass originating from plantation crops, which operate under distinct land-use, governance, and supply-chain structures. Drawing on international literature and Indonesian policy frameworks, the study repositions food-crop agricultural biomass as a limited and multi-functional asset embedded in the land–climate–food nexus. It highlights the inherent trade-offs among bioenergy development, food security, and soil sustainability, particularly in smallholder-dominated, fragmented agricultural systems. The analysis shows that market-driven biomass extraction tends to externalize ecological costs and weaken soil functions, while existing regulations lack sufficient policy coherence and operational guardrails. The paper concludes that bioenergy should be treated as a derivative use of food-crop agricultural biomass, governed through explicit prioritization, nutrient-return mechanisms, and locally grounded governance to ensure sustainable and equitable outcomes.
Keywords: Food-crop agricultural biomass, bioenergy trade-offs, food–energy–land nexus, soil sustainability, smallholder agriculture, Indonesia
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, food-crop biomass in Indonesia has increasingly been promoted as a potential renewable energy resource within broader climate change mitigation and energy transition agendas. Crop residues such as rice straw, rice husk, corn cobs, and maize stalks are frequently framed as abundant “waste” that can be readily mobilized for bioenergy production. This narrative has gained traction alongside global calls for land-based mitigation options, including bioenergy, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify energy sources (IPCC, 2023). However, a substantial body of scientific literature emphasizes that land-based mitigation strategies inherently involve food–energy–land trade-offs, particularly when biomass is derived from food-crop systems rather than from dedicated energy crops (Tilman et al., 2009).
From a purely quantitative perspective, Indonesia’s major food crops indeed generate large volumes of residues. National rice and maize production together generate more than 80 million tons of crop residues annually, corresponding to over 1 billion gigajoules of theoretical gross energy content. Such aggregate estimates are frequently cited to support claims of abundant biomass availability for energy use. Yet scholars caution that gross theoretical potential often overstates practically and sustainably extractable biomass, particularly in smallholder-dominated and ecologically constrained agricultural systems (Creutzig et al., 2015).
However, treating food-crop residues primarily as energy feedstock risks obscuring their multiple and competing functions within food systems. In smallholder-dominated agricultural landscapes such as those in Indonesia, crop residues are not merely by-products of production but an integral component of agroecosystems. Soil organic carbon is widely recognized as a critical component of climate mitigation and long-term soil productivity, as it underpins nutrient availability, soil structure, water retention, and biological activity within agroecosystems (Lal, 2004). Empirical evidence further demonstrates that intensive crop residue removal—particularly when driven by bioenergy demand—can significantly reduce soil carbon pools unless adequate compensatory measures are applied, such as residue return or alternative organic inputs (Blanco-Canqui, 2012). At the same time, crop residues provide essential inputs for livestock feeding and rural household economies (FAO, 2017a; Purnamaningsih, 2017). Framing these residues as surplus biomass available for extraction may therefore bias policy choices toward short-term energy gains at the expense of long-term food security and soil sustainability.
The risks associated with such framing are amplified by the structural characteristics of Indonesia’s food-crop sector. More than three-quarters of farmers operate on landholdings of less than one hectare, resulting in biomass supplies that are spatially fragmented, seasonal, and costly to collect. Under these conditions, market-driven biomass extraction tends to favor actors with larger capital and logistical capacity, while smallholder farmers face weak bargaining positions and bear the long-term costs of declining soil fertility. Political–economic analyses of bioenergy expansion highlight that power asymmetries in land control, capital access, and market integration often result in uneven benefit distribution, while environmental and social costs are disproportionately borne by rural producers and local ecosystems (Borras et al., 2010; Cotula et al., 2009).
At the global level, assessments of bioenergy and biofuel policies indicate that land-based mitigation pathways can contribute to emission reduction objectives. However, analyses also emphasize that bioenergy expansion, when driven primarily by market incentives and policy mandates without adequate safeguards for land use, soil resources, and food systems, may generate significant trade-offs that undermine long-term agricultural and ecological resilience (Rajagopal & Zilberman, 2007). Scientific debates increasingly emphasize that bioenergy strategies that disregard agroecological functions and smallholder livelihoods risk shifting environmental and social costs into the future rather than eliminating them (Tilman et al., 2009; Creutzig et al., 2015).
In the Indonesian context, policy discourse on biomass has often remained generic, frequently biomass, lumping them together. Such aggregation obscures critical differences in land tenure, production scale, governance arrangements, and socio-ecological functions. Food-crop residues are embedded within smallholder food systems and local nutrient cycles, whereas plantation biomass typically operates within centralized and vertically integrated commodity chains. Failing to distinguish between these systems risk applying policy instruments that are ill-suited to protect food security and soil sustainability.
Scientific debates increasingly warn that bioenergy pathways ignoring agroecological and livelihood considerations may defer, rather than avoid, environmental and social costs. Biomass originating from plantation crops—such as oil palm, sugarcane estates, or industrial forestry—is explicitly excluded. By repositioning food-crop biomass as a limited and multi-functional asset within food systems, this paper aims to analyze the trade-offs between bioenergy development, food security, and soil sustainability in Indonesia’s smallholder-dominated agricultural landscape. Energy is therefore treated as a derivative and conditional use of food-crop residues, rather than as the primary objective of biomass utilization.
FOOD-CROP BIOMASS AS A LIMITED AND MULTI-FUNCTIONAL ASSET
In the literature on sustainable food systems, food-crop biomass—particularly crop residues from staple crops such as rice and maize—is increasingly recognized as an integral component of agroecosystems rather than as a disposable by-product of production. Within the food-crop systems, residues perform multiple interlinked functions that span ecological integrity, economic viability, and social stability. These functions situate food-crop biomass firmly within the land–climate–food nexus, where decisions regarding its utilization inevitably involve trade-offs across sectors and time horizons (IPCC, 2019; IPCC, 2023).
From an ecological perspective, food-crop residues play a central role in maintaining soil health and long-term productive capacity. Residues directly replenish soil organic carbon (SOC), support soil biological activity, improve aggregate stability, and enhance water-holding capacity. Wang et al. (2020) reported that, based on a meta-analysis, residue returning significantly enhanced soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks by approximately 11.3% relative to residue removal, with increases of up to 18% observed at higher proportions of residue return.
Beyond their ecological functions, food crop residues have substantial economic value at the local level. In many rural areas of Indonesia, crop residues are essential inputs for livestock feeding, household energy use, and small-scale rural enterprises such as food processing, brick making, crop drying, and traditional manufacturing. These uses are embedded in household livelihood strategies and local circular economies, yet they are rarely captured in formal market valuations. A national-level assessment of biomass potential by Hidayati and Ekayuliana (2022) further highlights that agricultural residues in Indonesia simultaneously function as energy resources, environmental management inputs, and economic assets within rural production systems, rather than as single-purpose fuel stocks. The Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) framework emphasizes that diverting residues toward energy use without accounting for these existing functions risks displacing critical livelihood inputs and exacerbating vulnerability among smallholder farmers (FAO, 2014).
Empirical evidence from Lombok Island illustrates clearly the multi-functionality of food-crop agricultural biomass in practice. Rice husk is widely used as bedding material in spatially dispersed poultry production systems across the island, reflecting the dense presence of small-scale chicken farming. Rice husk is also utilized as a traditional fuel in brick-making kilns and, increasingly, as a component of livestock feed after grinding and mixing with bran. Corn cobs function as a low-cost energy source for tofu and tempeh production, tobacco curing, small-scale salt refining, and household fuel use, while also serving as supplementary feed for cattle in some areas. Rice straw supports cattle feeding, mushroom farming and cultivation, roofing materials, ceramic production, fuel, and a range of ancillary uses, including mulching, crop support, and protective packing for fruit transport. These overlapping functions indicate that residues circulate primarily within local production systems rather than existing as idle biomass pools available for external extraction.
The availability of food-crop biomass is further constrained by the structural characteristics of smallholder farming systems. In Indonesia, the dominance of fragmented landholdings and seasonal harvest cycles results in biomass supplies that are spatially dispersed, temporally concentrated, and logistically costly to mobilize. Evidence from bioenergy system analyses shows that collection and transport may account for roughly 37.4-42.5% of total system costs when agricultural residues are utilized in the biomass (Possidônio et al., 2016). Under such conditions, aggregate national estimates of residue availability tend to overstate the practical and economically accessible biomass supply.
Importantly, the “limited” nature of food-crop biomass is not solely a question of physical quantity. Even where residues appear abundant in aggregate terms, their extraction is constrained by ecological thresholds, competing on-farm uses, and site-specific management requirements. FAO guidelines on sustainable crop residue management emphasize that decisions regarding how much residue can be removed must be tailored to local soil conditions, climate, cropping systems, and existing residue uses. Exceeding these thresholds risks irreversible degradation of soil functions and long-term declines in food production capacity (FAO, 2017b).
The multifunctionality of food-crop biomass therefore implies inherent competition among its uses. Residues simultaneously support soil fertility, livestock production, household energy, and potential bioenergy feedstock. Increasing demand for residues in one domain—particularly energy—inevitably constrains their availability in others. In the absence of explicit prioritization, market mechanisms tend to allocate biomass toward uses with higher immediate purchasing power rather than toward functions with higher long-term socio-ecological value. In food-crop systems, this dynamic is especially problematic, as soil fertility degradation directly translates into declining productivity, increased reliance on external inputs, and heightened vulnerability to climate shocks.
Taken together, these considerations underscore the need to conceptualize food-crop biomass as a limited, multifunctional asset embedded within food systems, rather than as an undifferentiated energy resource. Policy approaches that recognize a hierarchy of uses—prioritizing soil functions and food security, followed by livestock and local economic uses, and allocating residues to energy only as a derivative option—are more consistent with principles of sustainability and policy coherence. Such framing provides a necessary analytical foundation for examining the structural risks, governance challenges, and distributional consequences of food-crop biomass utilization, which are addressed in the subsequent sections.
BIOMASS UTILIZATION POLICY AND GOVERNANCE
The governance of food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia is fundamentally a question of how trade-offs between food security, soil sustainability, and alternative biomass uses are managed within existing legal frameworks. Rather than suffering from a lack of regulation, Indonesia faces the challenge of aligning sectoral policies so that biomass utilization does not default to short-term, market-driven extraction at the expense of long-term food-system resilience. The governance of food-crop residues, therefore, hinges on prioritization, limitation, and integration across policy domains.
At the core of this framework lies Law No. 18/2012 on Food, which establishes food availability and stability as overriding national objectives. Within this legal logic, food-crop residues cannot be diverted to non-food uses unless such utilization demonstrably safeguards food production and the food system's stability. These principal positions food security as the first-order filter in biomass decision-making, subordinating energy or commercial uses to the integrity of the food system.
Spatial and agronomic constraints on biomass extraction are reinforced by Law No. 41/2009 on Sustainable Food Agricultural Land Protection (LP2B). By recognizing land productivity as a long-term public good, LP2B provides a legal basis to restrict practices that undermine soil organic matter and land carrying capacity in designated food-production areas. Excessive removal of crop residues is thus framed not as a neutral technical choice, but as a land-use decision with intergenerational consequences for soil fertility and agricultural sustainability.
Table 1. Policy framework for food-crop agricultural biomass utilization in Indonesia and its relevance to beyond-energy trade-offs
|
Regulation / Instrument
|
Relevance to Biomass Trade-offs
|
|
Law No. 18/2012 on Food (UU No. 18 Tahun 2012 tentang Pangan)
|
Establishes the primacy of food production, ensuring that the utilization of food-crop residues does not compromise food availability and national food stability.
|
|
Law No. 41/2009 on Sustainable Food Agricultural Land Protection (UU No. 41/2009 tentang Perlindungan Lahan Pertanian Pangan Berkelanjutan)
|
Provides a legal basis to restrict excessive removal of food-crop residues that may reduce organic soil and undermine long-term land productivity.
|
|
Law No. 22/2019 on Sustainable Agricultural Cultivation Systems (UU No. 22/2019 tentang Sistem Budidaya Pertanian Berkelanjutan)
|
Position crop residues as an integral part of cultivation systems and land carrying capacity, rather than surplus biomass freely available for energy use.
|
|
Law No. 19/2013 on Farmer Protection and Empowerment (UU No. 19/2013 tentang Perlindungan dan Pemberdayaan Petani)
|
Addressing trade-offs ensures that farmers are not disadvantaged when food-crop residues are diverted to non-food uses, such as energy.
|
|
Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (UU No. 32/2009 tentang Perlindungan dan Pengelolaan Lingkungan Hidup)
|
Serves as the overarching framework for managing intertemporal trade-offs between short-term biomass extraction and long-term soil and ecosystem sustainability.
|
|
Government Regulation No. 46/2016 on Strategic Environmental Assessment (PP No. 46/2016 tentang Kajian Lingkungan Hidup Strategis (KLHS))
|
Functions as a key instrument to determine how much food-crop biomass may be allocated to energy use without exceeding ecological and food-system limits.
|
This land-based protection is complemented by Law No. 22/2019 on Sustainable Agricultural Cultivation Systems, which embeds crop residues within cultivation systems and land carrying capacity. By positioning residues as integral components of sustainable farming practices, the law reframes residue removal as an agronomic intervention rather than the mobilization of surplus biomass. As a result, policies promoting residue utilization for energy must be assessed for their compatibility with sustainable cultivation objectives, rather than solely for energy efficiency.
The distributive implications of biomass utilization are addressed through Law No. 19/2013 on Farmer Protection and Empowerment, which emphasizes that farmers must not be disadvantaged by shifts in resource allocation driven by market or policy incentives. In the context of food-crop residues, this implies that energy-oriented utilization must not externalize soil degradation risks or increased input dependency onto smallholders, while economic benefits accrue elsewhere. Governance arrangements must therefore account for equality and benefit-sharing alongside efficiency considerations.
Finally, intertemporal and environmental trade-offs are governed by Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (PPLH) and operationalized through Government Regulation No. 46/2016 on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA/KLHS). These instruments provide a framework for determining how much food-crop biomass may be allocated to alternative uses without exceeding ecological limits or undermining food-system resilience. Together, they anchor biomass governance in precautionary, forward-looking assessment, positioning energy use as a conditional, derivative function of food-crop agricultural biomass rather than a primary policy objective.
Table 1 summarizes the key legal instruments that directly shape trade-offs in the utilization of food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia. The table highlights how food security, land protection, environmental governance, and farmer protection collectively constrain biomass extraction and position energy use as a derivative of these constraints.
STRUCTURAL RISKS AND BENEFIT DISTRIBUTION IN FOOD-CROP BIOMASS UTILIZATION
The incorporation of food-crop agricultural biomass into energy and non-food markets transforms crop residues from internal components of food systems into cross-sectoral economic resources. This shift introduces structural risks that are widely discussed in policy coherence and political economy literature, particularly where land-based resources are reallocated across sectors with unequal power relations (OECD, 2023). In smallholder-dominated food-crop systems such as Indonesia’s, these risks are amplified by fragmented land ownership, dispersed biomass supply, and weak producer bargaining positions.
One major structural risk arises from asymmetries in bargaining power along biomass value chains. Bioenergy and industrial applications typically require standardized, continuous, and large-volume feedstock supplies, conditions that favor actors with capital, logistics, and contractual leverage. Smallholder farmers, by contrast, generate residues in seasonal and spatially fragmented patterns, which limit their ability to negotiate prices or contractual terms. Empirical and policy analyses show that under such conditions, farmers are often reduced to suppliers of low-value residues, while downstream actors capture a disproportionate share of value added (FAO, 2014; IEA Bioenergy, 2017).
A second structural risk concerns the externalization of ecological costs. The literature on sustainable residue management consistently emphasizes that crop residues perform critical soil functions and that their removal entails opportunity costs of soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and long-term productivity (FAO, 2017; FAO, 2018). When residues are diverted to off-farm uses without adequate compensation or nutrient return, these ecological costs are borne primarily by farmers and local production systems, while market prices reflect only short-term demand for biomass. This mismatch between private returns and social costs is a classic feature of poorly governed land-based resource utilization (IPCC, 2019).
Structural risks are further reinforced by temporal asymmetries between benefits and costs. Economic gains from biomass utilizations, such as cash income or energy supply, are typically realized in the short term, whereas soil degradation and declining productivity manifest gradually over multiple cropping cycles. The IPCC highlights this temporal disconnect as a central challenge in land-based mitigation strategies, noting that delayed impacts on food systems and ecosystems are often underestimated in policy and investment decisions (IPCC, 2019; IPCC, 2023). As a result, biomass extraction may appear economically rational in the short run while undermining long-term food-system resilience.
These dynamics have important distributional implications. Without explicit benefit-sharing mechanisms, the economic value generated from food-crop agricultural biomass tends to accrue downstream, while farmers bear the risks of soil degradation and increased input dependency. FAO’s Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) framework warns that such outcomes can exacerbate rural vulnerability and contradict policy objectives related to farmer protection and livelihood sustainability (FAO, 2014). Similar concerns are echoed in governance and political-economy studies of sustainability transitions, which emphasize that inequitable distributions of costs and benefits tend to undermine social legitimacy and long-term policy viability—dynamics that are highly relevant to bioenergy and biomass-based initiatives. (O’Riordan & Voisey, 1999).
In aggregate, these structural risks indicate that market forces alone are insufficient to ensure equitable and sustainable utilization of food-crop agricultural biomass. Governance arrangements must therefore address not only technical efficiency but also the allocation of risks and benefits across actors and time. Instruments such as minimum residue retention, mandatory nutrient return, transparent contracting, and locally grounded decision-making are repeatedly identified in the literature as essential safeguards for aligning biomass utilization with food security and soil sustainability objectives (FAO, 2017; IEA Bioenergy, 2017; IPCC, 2023). Without such safeguards, biomass utilization risks reinforcing existing structural inequalities within food systems rather than contributing to a just and sustainable transition.
TECHNO-MANAGERIAL OPTIONS WITHIN THE POLICY FRAMEWORK
Techno-managerial options for utilizing food-crop agricultural biomass must be designed as instruments for implementing policy priorities rather than as stand-alone technical solutions. Within the food-first and soil-protection logic established by Indonesia’s legal framework, technology choices are inseparable from governance arrangements that determine scale, location, and allocation of benefits. The central objective is therefore not maximizing biomass extraction, but aligning residue utilization with food security, soil sustainability, and farmer protection objectives.
Among available pathways, fermentation-based systems—such as biogas, bio-CNG, or bio-LNG—are relatively more compatible with food-crop systems than combustion-based or centralized power generation. These systems can be organized at clustered or community scales that reflect fragmented smallholder production patterns, rather than relying on long-distance residue extraction. More importantly, fermentation produces digestate as a co-product, enabling the return of nutrients and organic matter to agricultural land. Digestate is consistently reported in the literature as a nutrient-rich material containing readily available nitrogen—predominantly in ammonium form—alongside phosphorus, potassium, and residual organic carbon, which together support both short-term crop nutrition and longer-term soil quality improvement (Doyeni et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2021).
Comprehensive reviews emphasize that the agronomic value of digestate lies not only in its macronutrient content but also in its capacity to enhance soil structure, microbial activity, and water-holding capacity when appropriately managed (Drosg, 2015; Martín-Sanz-Garrido et al., 2025). This nutrient return flow is therefore critical for maintaining key soil functions and preventing the decoupling of energy production from nutrient cycling in food-crop systems. Without such nutrient looping, bioenergy pathways risk externalizing soil fertility costs to future production cycles, whereas digestate recycling allows anaerobic digestion to function as a circular rather than extractive technology (Sobhi et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2024).
Scale design constitutes a first-order techno-managerial decision. In food-crop landscapes with dispersed residue availability, overly large or centralized facilities increase logistical costs and intensify competition for residues. Cluster-based designs—organized around groups of villages or contiguous production blocks—allow residue mobilization to remain within ecologically and socially manageable boundaries. Such designs are more consistent with the precautionary logic embedded in food security, land protection, and environmental assessment instruments, as they limit both spatial and functional over-extraction.
A second key option is to integrate reverse logistics for nutrient return as a mandatory component of biomass utilization models. Digestate or compost derived from food-crop residues should be treated not as a waste stream, but as a contractual entitlement for supplying farmers. Scheduled, block-based returns of digestate to fields help internalize ecological costs that would otherwise be externalized onto farmers. From a managerial perspective, embedding nutrient return into supply contracts transforms soil protection from a regulatory obligation into a core element of the business model.
Contractual and pricing arrangements represent another critical techno-managerial lever. Simple per-ton residue pricing mechanisms tend to undervalue the ecological and livelihood functions of food-crop residues. More appropriate schemes combine base prices with quality criteria, residue retention requirements, and in-kind returns such as digestate or soil amendments. Such arrangements help correct bargaining asymmetries along the biomass value chain and align economic incentives with policy objectives related to farmer protection and sustainable cultivation.
Finally, monitoring and performance indicators are essential to ensure that techno-managerial options function as governance tools rather than isolated projects. Indicators should extend beyond energy output to include compliance with residue retention requirements, nutrient return delivery, and observable trends in soil condition at the field level. When linked to strategic environmental assessment and local oversight mechanisms, such indicators provide feedback loops that allow adjustment before structural risks materialize. In this way, techno-managerial options become practical expressions of policy intent, ensuring that food-crop agricultural biomass contributes to energy transitions without undermining the foundations of food systems and soil sustainability.
CONCLUSION
This paper argues that food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia should not be treated as an abundant or freely available energy resource, but rather as a limited, multifunctional asset embedded in food systems, soil processes, and smallholder livelihoods. Although aggregate estimates often highlight large theoretical bioenergy potential, such figures obscure ecological thresholds, competing local uses, and structural constraints inherent in smallholder-dominated agriculture. Market-driven biomass extraction, when pursued without explicit safeguards, tends to externalize soil fertility costs and deepen power asymmetries along biomass value chains, placing long-term productivity and food-system resilience at risk.
The analysis further shows that Indonesia’s existing policy framework already provides a strong basis for governing these trade-offs by prioritizing food security, soil sustainability, and farmer protection. Within this framework, bioenergy must remain a conditional and derivative use of food-crop residues, supported by governance and techno-managerial arrangements that ensure nutrient return, limit over-extraction, and distribute benefits equitably. Fermentation-based systems that enable digestate recycling, combined with cluster-scale design and mandatory nutrient-looping mechanisms, offer a more compatible pathway for aligning energy objectives with long-term food-system resilience and sustainable agricultural development.
REFERENCES
Blanco-Canqui, H. (2012). Crop residue removal for bioenergy reduces soil carbon pools: How can we offset carbon losses? BioEnergy Research, 6(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-012-9221-3
Borras Jr., S. M., McMichael, P., & Scoones, I. (2010). The politics of biofuels, land and agrarian change. Journal of Peasant Studies, 37(4), 575–592. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2010.512448
Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R., & Keeley, J. (2009). Land grab or development opportunity?: Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa. https://www.iied.org/12561iied
Creutzig, F., Ravindranath, N. H., Berndes, G., Bolwig, S., Bright, R., Cherubini, F., ... & Masera, O. (2015). Bioenergy and climate change mitigation: An assessment. GCB Bioenergy, 7(5), 916–944. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12205
Doyeni, M. O., Stulpinaite, U., Baksinskaite, A., Suproniene, S., Tilvikiene, V., & Balestrini, R. M. (2021). The effectiveness of digestate use for fertilization in an agricultural cropping system. Plants, 10(8), 1734. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10081734
Drosg, B., Fuchs, W., Al Seadi, T., Madsen, M., & Linke, B. (2015). Nutrient recovery by biogas digestate processing. IEA Bioenergy. https://www.ieabioenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NUTRIENT_RECOVERY_RZ_web2.pdf
FAO. (2014). Bioenergy and food security (BEFS): Rapid appraisal. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
FAO. (2017a). Voluntary guidelines for sustainable soil management. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
FAO. (2017b). Towards a decision support tool on sustainable crop residue management. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
FAO. (2018). Sustainable crop residue management: A framework for soil protection and food security. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
Hidayati, N., & Ekayuliana, A. (2022). Studi potensial energi biomassa dari limbah pertanian dan perkebunan di Indonesia. Seminar Nasional Inovasi Vokasi, 1(1), 130–137.
IEA Bioenergy. (2017). Mobilizing agricultural residues for bioenergy and bio-products (TR2017-01). IEA Bioenergy. https://www.ieabioenergy.com
IPCC. (2019). Climate change and land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
IPCC. (2023). AR6 synthesis report: Climate change 2023. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch
Lal, R. (2004). Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change. Geoderma, 123(1–2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2004.01.032
Lee, M. E., Steiman, M. W., & St. Angelo, S. K. (2021). Biogas digestate as a renewable fertilizer: Effects of digestate application on crop growth and nutrient composition. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 36(2), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170520000179
Liu, W., Yao, B., Xu, Y., Dai, S., Wang, M., Ma, J., Ye, Z., & Liu, D. (2024). Biogas digestate as a potential nitrogen source enhances soil fertility, rice nitrogen metabolism and yield. Field Crops Research, 318, 109568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109568
Martín-Sanz-Garrido, C., Revuelta-Aramburu, M., & Santos-Montes, A. M. (2025). A review on anaerobic digestate as a biofertilizer: Characteristics, production, and environmental impacts from a life cycle assessment perspective. Applied Sciences, 15(15), 8635. https://doi.org/10.3390/app15158635
OECD. (2023). Driving policy coherence for sustainable development: Means of implementation and governance for the SDGs (OECD policy perspectives). OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/a6cb4aa1-en
O’Riordan, T., & Voisey, H. (1999). The political economy of the sustainability transition. In T. O’Riordan & H. Voisey (Eds.), The transition to sustainability (1st ed., pp. 1–28). Routledge.
Possidônio, E. F. da S. C., Silva, J. E. A. R. da, & Toso, E. V. (2016). Biomass supply chain analysis with densified waste. Revista Árvore, 40(2), 355–362. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-67622016000200018
Purnamaningsih, H. (2017). Potensi jerami sebagai pakan ternak ruminansia. Jurnal Ilmu dan Inovasi Peternakan, 27(1), 1–10. (https://jiip.ub.ac.id/index.php/jiip/article/view/265/0
Rajagopal, D., & Zilberman, D. (2007). Review of environmental, economic, and policy aspects of biofuels: implications for agricultural and energy markets. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4341. World Bank.
Sobhi, M., Elsamahy, T., Zakaria, E., Gaballah, M. S., Zhu, F., Hu, X., Zhou, C., Guo, J., Huo, S., & Dong, R. (2024). Characteristics, limitations and global regulations in the use of biogas digestate as fertilizer: A comprehensive overview. Science of the Total Environment, 957, 177855. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177855
Sugama, I. N. (2010). Pemanfaatan jerami padi sebagai pakan alternatif untuk sapi Bali dara [PDF]. https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/164345-ID-pemanfaatan-jerami-padi-sebagai-pakan-al.pdf
Tilman, D., Socolow, R., Foley, J. A., Hill, J., Larson, E., Lynd, L., ... & Williams, R. (2009). Beneficial biofuels—The food, energy, and environment trilemma. Science, 325(5938), 270–271. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1177970
Wang, X., He, C., Liu, B., Zhao, X., Liu, Y., Wang, Q., & Zhang, H. (2020). Effects of residue returning on soil organic carbon storage and sequestration rate in China’s croplands: A meta-analysis. Agronomy, 10(5), 691. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10050691
Managing Biomass Trade-offs in Indonesia’s Smallholder Agriculture
ABSTRACT
Food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia is increasingly promoted as a renewable energy resource, often framed as abundant crop “waste” that can be converted. This paper explicitly focuses on crop residues from food-crop agriculture—such as rice, maize, and other staple crops—and deliberately excludes biomass originating from plantation crops, which operate under distinct land-use, governance, and supply-chain structures. Drawing on international literature and Indonesian policy frameworks, the study repositions food-crop agricultural biomass as a limited and multi-functional asset embedded in the land–climate–food nexus. It highlights the inherent trade-offs among bioenergy development, food security, and soil sustainability, particularly in smallholder-dominated, fragmented agricultural systems. The analysis shows that market-driven biomass extraction tends to externalize ecological costs and weaken soil functions, while existing regulations lack sufficient policy coherence and operational guardrails. The paper concludes that bioenergy should be treated as a derivative use of food-crop agricultural biomass, governed through explicit prioritization, nutrient-return mechanisms, and locally grounded governance to ensure sustainable and equitable outcomes.
Keywords: Food-crop agricultural biomass, bioenergy trade-offs, food–energy–land nexus, soil sustainability, smallholder agriculture, Indonesia
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, food-crop biomass in Indonesia has increasingly been promoted as a potential renewable energy resource within broader climate change mitigation and energy transition agendas. Crop residues such as rice straw, rice husk, corn cobs, and maize stalks are frequently framed as abundant “waste” that can be readily mobilized for bioenergy production. This narrative has gained traction alongside global calls for land-based mitigation options, including bioenergy, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify energy sources (IPCC, 2023). However, a substantial body of scientific literature emphasizes that land-based mitigation strategies inherently involve food–energy–land trade-offs, particularly when biomass is derived from food-crop systems rather than from dedicated energy crops (Tilman et al., 2009).
From a purely quantitative perspective, Indonesia’s major food crops indeed generate large volumes of residues. National rice and maize production together generate more than 80 million tons of crop residues annually, corresponding to over 1 billion gigajoules of theoretical gross energy content. Such aggregate estimates are frequently cited to support claims of abundant biomass availability for energy use. Yet scholars caution that gross theoretical potential often overstates practically and sustainably extractable biomass, particularly in smallholder-dominated and ecologically constrained agricultural systems (Creutzig et al., 2015).
However, treating food-crop residues primarily as energy feedstock risks obscuring their multiple and competing functions within food systems. In smallholder-dominated agricultural landscapes such as those in Indonesia, crop residues are not merely by-products of production but an integral component of agroecosystems. Soil organic carbon is widely recognized as a critical component of climate mitigation and long-term soil productivity, as it underpins nutrient availability, soil structure, water retention, and biological activity within agroecosystems (Lal, 2004). Empirical evidence further demonstrates that intensive crop residue removal—particularly when driven by bioenergy demand—can significantly reduce soil carbon pools unless adequate compensatory measures are applied, such as residue return or alternative organic inputs (Blanco-Canqui, 2012). At the same time, crop residues provide essential inputs for livestock feeding and rural household economies (FAO, 2017a; Purnamaningsih, 2017). Framing these residues as surplus biomass available for extraction may therefore bias policy choices toward short-term energy gains at the expense of long-term food security and soil sustainability.
The risks associated with such framing are amplified by the structural characteristics of Indonesia’s food-crop sector. More than three-quarters of farmers operate on landholdings of less than one hectare, resulting in biomass supplies that are spatially fragmented, seasonal, and costly to collect. Under these conditions, market-driven biomass extraction tends to favor actors with larger capital and logistical capacity, while smallholder farmers face weak bargaining positions and bear the long-term costs of declining soil fertility. Political–economic analyses of bioenergy expansion highlight that power asymmetries in land control, capital access, and market integration often result in uneven benefit distribution, while environmental and social costs are disproportionately borne by rural producers and local ecosystems (Borras et al., 2010; Cotula et al., 2009).
At the global level, assessments of bioenergy and biofuel policies indicate that land-based mitigation pathways can contribute to emission reduction objectives. However, analyses also emphasize that bioenergy expansion, when driven primarily by market incentives and policy mandates without adequate safeguards for land use, soil resources, and food systems, may generate significant trade-offs that undermine long-term agricultural and ecological resilience (Rajagopal & Zilberman, 2007). Scientific debates increasingly emphasize that bioenergy strategies that disregard agroecological functions and smallholder livelihoods risk shifting environmental and social costs into the future rather than eliminating them (Tilman et al., 2009; Creutzig et al., 2015).
In the Indonesian context, policy discourse on biomass has often remained generic, frequently biomass, lumping them together. Such aggregation obscures critical differences in land tenure, production scale, governance arrangements, and socio-ecological functions. Food-crop residues are embedded within smallholder food systems and local nutrient cycles, whereas plantation biomass typically operates within centralized and vertically integrated commodity chains. Failing to distinguish between these systems risk applying policy instruments that are ill-suited to protect food security and soil sustainability.
Scientific debates increasingly warn that bioenergy pathways ignoring agroecological and livelihood considerations may defer, rather than avoid, environmental and social costs. Biomass originating from plantation crops—such as oil palm, sugarcane estates, or industrial forestry—is explicitly excluded. By repositioning food-crop biomass as a limited and multi-functional asset within food systems, this paper aims to analyze the trade-offs between bioenergy development, food security, and soil sustainability in Indonesia’s smallholder-dominated agricultural landscape. Energy is therefore treated as a derivative and conditional use of food-crop residues, rather than as the primary objective of biomass utilization.
FOOD-CROP BIOMASS AS A LIMITED AND MULTI-FUNCTIONAL ASSET
In the literature on sustainable food systems, food-crop biomass—particularly crop residues from staple crops such as rice and maize—is increasingly recognized as an integral component of agroecosystems rather than as a disposable by-product of production. Within the food-crop systems, residues perform multiple interlinked functions that span ecological integrity, economic viability, and social stability. These functions situate food-crop biomass firmly within the land–climate–food nexus, where decisions regarding its utilization inevitably involve trade-offs across sectors and time horizons (IPCC, 2019; IPCC, 2023).
From an ecological perspective, food-crop residues play a central role in maintaining soil health and long-term productive capacity. Residues directly replenish soil organic carbon (SOC), support soil biological activity, improve aggregate stability, and enhance water-holding capacity. Wang et al. (2020) reported that, based on a meta-analysis, residue returning significantly enhanced soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks by approximately 11.3% relative to residue removal, with increases of up to 18% observed at higher proportions of residue return.
Beyond their ecological functions, food crop residues have substantial economic value at the local level. In many rural areas of Indonesia, crop residues are essential inputs for livestock feeding, household energy use, and small-scale rural enterprises such as food processing, brick making, crop drying, and traditional manufacturing. These uses are embedded in household livelihood strategies and local circular economies, yet they are rarely captured in formal market valuations. A national-level assessment of biomass potential by Hidayati and Ekayuliana (2022) further highlights that agricultural residues in Indonesia simultaneously function as energy resources, environmental management inputs, and economic assets within rural production systems, rather than as single-purpose fuel stocks. The Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) framework emphasizes that diverting residues toward energy use without accounting for these existing functions risks displacing critical livelihood inputs and exacerbating vulnerability among smallholder farmers (FAO, 2014).
Empirical evidence from Lombok Island illustrates clearly the multi-functionality of food-crop agricultural biomass in practice. Rice husk is widely used as bedding material in spatially dispersed poultry production systems across the island, reflecting the dense presence of small-scale chicken farming. Rice husk is also utilized as a traditional fuel in brick-making kilns and, increasingly, as a component of livestock feed after grinding and mixing with bran. Corn cobs function as a low-cost energy source for tofu and tempeh production, tobacco curing, small-scale salt refining, and household fuel use, while also serving as supplementary feed for cattle in some areas. Rice straw supports cattle feeding, mushroom farming and cultivation, roofing materials, ceramic production, fuel, and a range of ancillary uses, including mulching, crop support, and protective packing for fruit transport. These overlapping functions indicate that residues circulate primarily within local production systems rather than existing as idle biomass pools available for external extraction.
The availability of food-crop biomass is further constrained by the structural characteristics of smallholder farming systems. In Indonesia, the dominance of fragmented landholdings and seasonal harvest cycles results in biomass supplies that are spatially dispersed, temporally concentrated, and logistically costly to mobilize. Evidence from bioenergy system analyses shows that collection and transport may account for roughly 37.4-42.5% of total system costs when agricultural residues are utilized in the biomass (Possidônio et al., 2016). Under such conditions, aggregate national estimates of residue availability tend to overstate the practical and economically accessible biomass supply.
Importantly, the “limited” nature of food-crop biomass is not solely a question of physical quantity. Even where residues appear abundant in aggregate terms, their extraction is constrained by ecological thresholds, competing on-farm uses, and site-specific management requirements. FAO guidelines on sustainable crop residue management emphasize that decisions regarding how much residue can be removed must be tailored to local soil conditions, climate, cropping systems, and existing residue uses. Exceeding these thresholds risks irreversible degradation of soil functions and long-term declines in food production capacity (FAO, 2017b).
The multifunctionality of food-crop biomass therefore implies inherent competition among its uses. Residues simultaneously support soil fertility, livestock production, household energy, and potential bioenergy feedstock. Increasing demand for residues in one domain—particularly energy—inevitably constrains their availability in others. In the absence of explicit prioritization, market mechanisms tend to allocate biomass toward uses with higher immediate purchasing power rather than toward functions with higher long-term socio-ecological value. In food-crop systems, this dynamic is especially problematic, as soil fertility degradation directly translates into declining productivity, increased reliance on external inputs, and heightened vulnerability to climate shocks.
Taken together, these considerations underscore the need to conceptualize food-crop biomass as a limited, multifunctional asset embedded within food systems, rather than as an undifferentiated energy resource. Policy approaches that recognize a hierarchy of uses—prioritizing soil functions and food security, followed by livestock and local economic uses, and allocating residues to energy only as a derivative option—are more consistent with principles of sustainability and policy coherence. Such framing provides a necessary analytical foundation for examining the structural risks, governance challenges, and distributional consequences of food-crop biomass utilization, which are addressed in the subsequent sections.
BIOMASS UTILIZATION POLICY AND GOVERNANCE
The governance of food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia is fundamentally a question of how trade-offs between food security, soil sustainability, and alternative biomass uses are managed within existing legal frameworks. Rather than suffering from a lack of regulation, Indonesia faces the challenge of aligning sectoral policies so that biomass utilization does not default to short-term, market-driven extraction at the expense of long-term food-system resilience. The governance of food-crop residues, therefore, hinges on prioritization, limitation, and integration across policy domains.
At the core of this framework lies Law No. 18/2012 on Food, which establishes food availability and stability as overriding national objectives. Within this legal logic, food-crop residues cannot be diverted to non-food uses unless such utilization demonstrably safeguards food production and the food system's stability. These principal positions food security as the first-order filter in biomass decision-making, subordinating energy or commercial uses to the integrity of the food system.
Spatial and agronomic constraints on biomass extraction are reinforced by Law No. 41/2009 on Sustainable Food Agricultural Land Protection (LP2B). By recognizing land productivity as a long-term public good, LP2B provides a legal basis to restrict practices that undermine soil organic matter and land carrying capacity in designated food-production areas. Excessive removal of crop residues is thus framed not as a neutral technical choice, but as a land-use decision with intergenerational consequences for soil fertility and agricultural sustainability.
Table 1. Policy framework for food-crop agricultural biomass utilization in Indonesia and its relevance to beyond-energy trade-offs
Regulation / Instrument
Relevance to Biomass Trade-offs
Law No. 18/2012 on Food (UU No. 18 Tahun 2012 tentang Pangan)
Establishes the primacy of food production, ensuring that the utilization of food-crop residues does not compromise food availability and national food stability.
Law No. 41/2009 on Sustainable Food Agricultural Land Protection (UU No. 41/2009 tentang Perlindungan Lahan Pertanian Pangan Berkelanjutan)
Provides a legal basis to restrict excessive removal of food-crop residues that may reduce organic soil and undermine long-term land productivity.
Law No. 22/2019 on Sustainable Agricultural Cultivation Systems (UU No. 22/2019 tentang Sistem Budidaya Pertanian Berkelanjutan)
Position crop residues as an integral part of cultivation systems and land carrying capacity, rather than surplus biomass freely available for energy use.
Law No. 19/2013 on Farmer Protection and Empowerment (UU No. 19/2013 tentang Perlindungan dan Pemberdayaan Petani)
Addressing trade-offs ensures that farmers are not disadvantaged when food-crop residues are diverted to non-food uses, such as energy.
Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (UU No. 32/2009 tentang Perlindungan dan Pengelolaan Lingkungan Hidup)
Serves as the overarching framework for managing intertemporal trade-offs between short-term biomass extraction and long-term soil and ecosystem sustainability.
Government Regulation No. 46/2016 on Strategic Environmental Assessment (PP No. 46/2016 tentang Kajian Lingkungan Hidup Strategis (KLHS))
Functions as a key instrument to determine how much food-crop biomass may be allocated to energy use without exceeding ecological and food-system limits.
This land-based protection is complemented by Law No. 22/2019 on Sustainable Agricultural Cultivation Systems, which embeds crop residues within cultivation systems and land carrying capacity. By positioning residues as integral components of sustainable farming practices, the law reframes residue removal as an agronomic intervention rather than the mobilization of surplus biomass. As a result, policies promoting residue utilization for energy must be assessed for their compatibility with sustainable cultivation objectives, rather than solely for energy efficiency.
The distributive implications of biomass utilization are addressed through Law No. 19/2013 on Farmer Protection and Empowerment, which emphasizes that farmers must not be disadvantaged by shifts in resource allocation driven by market or policy incentives. In the context of food-crop residues, this implies that energy-oriented utilization must not externalize soil degradation risks or increased input dependency onto smallholders, while economic benefits accrue elsewhere. Governance arrangements must therefore account for equality and benefit-sharing alongside efficiency considerations.
Finally, intertemporal and environmental trade-offs are governed by Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (PPLH) and operationalized through Government Regulation No. 46/2016 on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA/KLHS). These instruments provide a framework for determining how much food-crop biomass may be allocated to alternative uses without exceeding ecological limits or undermining food-system resilience. Together, they anchor biomass governance in precautionary, forward-looking assessment, positioning energy use as a conditional, derivative function of food-crop agricultural biomass rather than a primary policy objective.
Table 1 summarizes the key legal instruments that directly shape trade-offs in the utilization of food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia. The table highlights how food security, land protection, environmental governance, and farmer protection collectively constrain biomass extraction and position energy use as a derivative of these constraints.
STRUCTURAL RISKS AND BENEFIT DISTRIBUTION IN FOOD-CROP BIOMASS UTILIZATION
The incorporation of food-crop agricultural biomass into energy and non-food markets transforms crop residues from internal components of food systems into cross-sectoral economic resources. This shift introduces structural risks that are widely discussed in policy coherence and political economy literature, particularly where land-based resources are reallocated across sectors with unequal power relations (OECD, 2023). In smallholder-dominated food-crop systems such as Indonesia’s, these risks are amplified by fragmented land ownership, dispersed biomass supply, and weak producer bargaining positions.
One major structural risk arises from asymmetries in bargaining power along biomass value chains. Bioenergy and industrial applications typically require standardized, continuous, and large-volume feedstock supplies, conditions that favor actors with capital, logistics, and contractual leverage. Smallholder farmers, by contrast, generate residues in seasonal and spatially fragmented patterns, which limit their ability to negotiate prices or contractual terms. Empirical and policy analyses show that under such conditions, farmers are often reduced to suppliers of low-value residues, while downstream actors capture a disproportionate share of value added (FAO, 2014; IEA Bioenergy, 2017).
A second structural risk concerns the externalization of ecological costs. The literature on sustainable residue management consistently emphasizes that crop residues perform critical soil functions and that their removal entails opportunity costs of soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and long-term productivity (FAO, 2017; FAO, 2018). When residues are diverted to off-farm uses without adequate compensation or nutrient return, these ecological costs are borne primarily by farmers and local production systems, while market prices reflect only short-term demand for biomass. This mismatch between private returns and social costs is a classic feature of poorly governed land-based resource utilization (IPCC, 2019).
Structural risks are further reinforced by temporal asymmetries between benefits and costs. Economic gains from biomass utilizations, such as cash income or energy supply, are typically realized in the short term, whereas soil degradation and declining productivity manifest gradually over multiple cropping cycles. The IPCC highlights this temporal disconnect as a central challenge in land-based mitigation strategies, noting that delayed impacts on food systems and ecosystems are often underestimated in policy and investment decisions (IPCC, 2019; IPCC, 2023). As a result, biomass extraction may appear economically rational in the short run while undermining long-term food-system resilience.
These dynamics have important distributional implications. Without explicit benefit-sharing mechanisms, the economic value generated from food-crop agricultural biomass tends to accrue downstream, while farmers bear the risks of soil degradation and increased input dependency. FAO’s Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) framework warns that such outcomes can exacerbate rural vulnerability and contradict policy objectives related to farmer protection and livelihood sustainability (FAO, 2014). Similar concerns are echoed in governance and political-economy studies of sustainability transitions, which emphasize that inequitable distributions of costs and benefits tend to undermine social legitimacy and long-term policy viability—dynamics that are highly relevant to bioenergy and biomass-based initiatives. (O’Riordan & Voisey, 1999).
In aggregate, these structural risks indicate that market forces alone are insufficient to ensure equitable and sustainable utilization of food-crop agricultural biomass. Governance arrangements must therefore address not only technical efficiency but also the allocation of risks and benefits across actors and time. Instruments such as minimum residue retention, mandatory nutrient return, transparent contracting, and locally grounded decision-making are repeatedly identified in the literature as essential safeguards for aligning biomass utilization with food security and soil sustainability objectives (FAO, 2017; IEA Bioenergy, 2017; IPCC, 2023). Without such safeguards, biomass utilization risks reinforcing existing structural inequalities within food systems rather than contributing to a just and sustainable transition.
TECHNO-MANAGERIAL OPTIONS WITHIN THE POLICY FRAMEWORK
Techno-managerial options for utilizing food-crop agricultural biomass must be designed as instruments for implementing policy priorities rather than as stand-alone technical solutions. Within the food-first and soil-protection logic established by Indonesia’s legal framework, technology choices are inseparable from governance arrangements that determine scale, location, and allocation of benefits. The central objective is therefore not maximizing biomass extraction, but aligning residue utilization with food security, soil sustainability, and farmer protection objectives.
Among available pathways, fermentation-based systems—such as biogas, bio-CNG, or bio-LNG—are relatively more compatible with food-crop systems than combustion-based or centralized power generation. These systems can be organized at clustered or community scales that reflect fragmented smallholder production patterns, rather than relying on long-distance residue extraction. More importantly, fermentation produces digestate as a co-product, enabling the return of nutrients and organic matter to agricultural land. Digestate is consistently reported in the literature as a nutrient-rich material containing readily available nitrogen—predominantly in ammonium form—alongside phosphorus, potassium, and residual organic carbon, which together support both short-term crop nutrition and longer-term soil quality improvement (Doyeni et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2021).
Comprehensive reviews emphasize that the agronomic value of digestate lies not only in its macronutrient content but also in its capacity to enhance soil structure, microbial activity, and water-holding capacity when appropriately managed (Drosg, 2015; Martín-Sanz-Garrido et al., 2025). This nutrient return flow is therefore critical for maintaining key soil functions and preventing the decoupling of energy production from nutrient cycling in food-crop systems. Without such nutrient looping, bioenergy pathways risk externalizing soil fertility costs to future production cycles, whereas digestate recycling allows anaerobic digestion to function as a circular rather than extractive technology (Sobhi et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2024).
Scale design constitutes a first-order techno-managerial decision. In food-crop landscapes with dispersed residue availability, overly large or centralized facilities increase logistical costs and intensify competition for residues. Cluster-based designs—organized around groups of villages or contiguous production blocks—allow residue mobilization to remain within ecologically and socially manageable boundaries. Such designs are more consistent with the precautionary logic embedded in food security, land protection, and environmental assessment instruments, as they limit both spatial and functional over-extraction.
A second key option is to integrate reverse logistics for nutrient return as a mandatory component of biomass utilization models. Digestate or compost derived from food-crop residues should be treated not as a waste stream, but as a contractual entitlement for supplying farmers. Scheduled, block-based returns of digestate to fields help internalize ecological costs that would otherwise be externalized onto farmers. From a managerial perspective, embedding nutrient return into supply contracts transforms soil protection from a regulatory obligation into a core element of the business model.
Contractual and pricing arrangements represent another critical techno-managerial lever. Simple per-ton residue pricing mechanisms tend to undervalue the ecological and livelihood functions of food-crop residues. More appropriate schemes combine base prices with quality criteria, residue retention requirements, and in-kind returns such as digestate or soil amendments. Such arrangements help correct bargaining asymmetries along the biomass value chain and align economic incentives with policy objectives related to farmer protection and sustainable cultivation.
Finally, monitoring and performance indicators are essential to ensure that techno-managerial options function as governance tools rather than isolated projects. Indicators should extend beyond energy output to include compliance with residue retention requirements, nutrient return delivery, and observable trends in soil condition at the field level. When linked to strategic environmental assessment and local oversight mechanisms, such indicators provide feedback loops that allow adjustment before structural risks materialize. In this way, techno-managerial options become practical expressions of policy intent, ensuring that food-crop agricultural biomass contributes to energy transitions without undermining the foundations of food systems and soil sustainability.
CONCLUSION
This paper argues that food-crop agricultural biomass in Indonesia should not be treated as an abundant or freely available energy resource, but rather as a limited, multifunctional asset embedded in food systems, soil processes, and smallholder livelihoods. Although aggregate estimates often highlight large theoretical bioenergy potential, such figures obscure ecological thresholds, competing local uses, and structural constraints inherent in smallholder-dominated agriculture. Market-driven biomass extraction, when pursued without explicit safeguards, tends to externalize soil fertility costs and deepen power asymmetries along biomass value chains, placing long-term productivity and food-system resilience at risk.
The analysis further shows that Indonesia’s existing policy framework already provides a strong basis for governing these trade-offs by prioritizing food security, soil sustainability, and farmer protection. Within this framework, bioenergy must remain a conditional and derivative use of food-crop residues, supported by governance and techno-managerial arrangements that ensure nutrient return, limit over-extraction, and distribute benefits equitably. Fermentation-based systems that enable digestate recycling, combined with cluster-scale design and mandatory nutrient-looping mechanisms, offer a more compatible pathway for aligning energy objectives with long-term food-system resilience and sustainable agricultural development.
REFERENCES
Blanco-Canqui, H. (2012). Crop residue removal for bioenergy reduces soil carbon pools: How can we offset carbon losses? BioEnergy Research, 6(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-012-9221-3
Borras Jr., S. M., McMichael, P., & Scoones, I. (2010). The politics of biofuels, land and agrarian change. Journal of Peasant Studies, 37(4), 575–592. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2010.512448
Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R., & Keeley, J. (2009). Land grab or development opportunity?: Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa. https://www.iied.org/12561iied
Creutzig, F., Ravindranath, N. H., Berndes, G., Bolwig, S., Bright, R., Cherubini, F., ... & Masera, O. (2015). Bioenergy and climate change mitigation: An assessment. GCB Bioenergy, 7(5), 916–944. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12205
Doyeni, M. O., Stulpinaite, U., Baksinskaite, A., Suproniene, S., Tilvikiene, V., & Balestrini, R. M. (2021). The effectiveness of digestate use for fertilization in an agricultural cropping system. Plants, 10(8), 1734. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10081734
Drosg, B., Fuchs, W., Al Seadi, T., Madsen, M., & Linke, B. (2015). Nutrient recovery by biogas digestate processing. IEA Bioenergy. https://www.ieabioenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NUTRIENT_RECOVERY_RZ_web2.pdf
FAO. (2014). Bioenergy and food security (BEFS): Rapid appraisal. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
FAO. (2017a). Voluntary guidelines for sustainable soil management. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
FAO. (2017b). Towards a decision support tool on sustainable crop residue management. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
FAO. (2018). Sustainable crop residue management: A framework for soil protection and food security. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. https://www.fao.org
Hidayati, N., & Ekayuliana, A. (2022). Studi potensial energi biomassa dari limbah pertanian dan perkebunan di Indonesia. Seminar Nasional Inovasi Vokasi, 1(1), 130–137.
IEA Bioenergy. (2017). Mobilizing agricultural residues for bioenergy and bio-products (TR2017-01). IEA Bioenergy. https://www.ieabioenergy.com
IPCC. (2019). Climate change and land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
IPCC. (2023). AR6 synthesis report: Climate change 2023. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch
Lal, R. (2004). Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change. Geoderma, 123(1–2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2004.01.032
Lee, M. E., Steiman, M. W., & St. Angelo, S. K. (2021). Biogas digestate as a renewable fertilizer: Effects of digestate application on crop growth and nutrient composition. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 36(2), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170520000179
Liu, W., Yao, B., Xu, Y., Dai, S., Wang, M., Ma, J., Ye, Z., & Liu, D. (2024). Biogas digestate as a potential nitrogen source enhances soil fertility, rice nitrogen metabolism and yield. Field Crops Research, 318, 109568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109568
Martín-Sanz-Garrido, C., Revuelta-Aramburu, M., & Santos-Montes, A. M. (2025). A review on anaerobic digestate as a biofertilizer: Characteristics, production, and environmental impacts from a life cycle assessment perspective. Applied Sciences, 15(15), 8635. https://doi.org/10.3390/app15158635
OECD. (2023). Driving policy coherence for sustainable development: Means of implementation and governance for the SDGs (OECD policy perspectives). OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/a6cb4aa1-en
O’Riordan, T., & Voisey, H. (1999). The political economy of the sustainability transition. In T. O’Riordan & H. Voisey (Eds.), The transition to sustainability (1st ed., pp. 1–28). Routledge.
Possidônio, E. F. da S. C., Silva, J. E. A. R. da, & Toso, E. V. (2016). Biomass supply chain analysis with densified waste. Revista Árvore, 40(2), 355–362. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-67622016000200018
Purnamaningsih, H. (2017). Potensi jerami sebagai pakan ternak ruminansia. Jurnal Ilmu dan Inovasi Peternakan, 27(1), 1–10. (https://jiip.ub.ac.id/index.php/jiip/article/view/265/0
Rajagopal, D., & Zilberman, D. (2007). Review of environmental, economic, and policy aspects of biofuels: implications for agricultural and energy markets. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4341. World Bank.
Sobhi, M., Elsamahy, T., Zakaria, E., Gaballah, M. S., Zhu, F., Hu, X., Zhou, C., Guo, J., Huo, S., & Dong, R. (2024). Characteristics, limitations and global regulations in the use of biogas digestate as fertilizer: A comprehensive overview. Science of the Total Environment, 957, 177855. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177855
Sugama, I. N. (2010). Pemanfaatan jerami padi sebagai pakan alternatif untuk sapi Bali dara [PDF]. https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/164345-ID-pemanfaatan-jerami-padi-sebagai-pakan-al.pdf
Tilman, D., Socolow, R., Foley, J. A., Hill, J., Larson, E., Lynd, L., ... & Williams, R. (2009). Beneficial biofuels—The food, energy, and environment trilemma. Science, 325(5938), 270–271. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1177970
Wang, X., He, C., Liu, B., Zhao, X., Liu, Y., Wang, Q., & Zhang, H. (2020). Effects of residue returning on soil organic carbon storage and sequestration rate in China’s croplands: A meta-analysis. Agronomy, 10(5), 691. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10050691