Rice production declining by 2% a year in Java<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah
\nsaid yesterday that rice production in Java is declining at a
\nrate of two percent per annum.<\/p>\n
\"If this decline is not matched by an increase in production
\noutside Java, we will have an extremely serious problem on our
\nhands,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Sjarifudin's comments were made in a speech read by the
\nDirector General of Food and Horticulture Amrin Kahar at a
\nseminar on the cultivation of tropical fruit and gogo-type rice.<\/p>\n
Sjarifudin said Java used to contribute about 60 percent of
\nthe country's rice supplies, adding that \"its contribution has
\ndecreased to about 56 percent now.\"<\/p>\n
He said fertile rice fields in Java which use irrigation
\ntechniques had been converted for other uses, such as for
\nindustrial estates and housing.<\/p>\n
\"Industry, roads and housing should make use of dry land
\ninstead of irrigated rice fields. At the same time, efforts to
\nplant and expand gogo-type rice in dry areas and unproductive
\nland outside Java should be intensified,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Amrin said that during the 1983-1993 period, 900,000 hectares
\nof irrigated rice fields in Java were converted for uses other
\nthan agriculture.<\/p>\n
Irrigated rice fields, he said, contribute up to 95 percent of
\nthe country's production and dry fields the remaining five
\npercent.<\/p>\n
Amrin calculated that if one hectare of rice field yields five
\ntons of unhusked rice per year, at least 4.5 million tons of the
\nrice production have been lost due to the conversion of fields
\nfor other forms of utilization.<\/p>\n
\"If a field was one that could be harvested twice a year, the
\nloss is at least nine million tons of yield per hectare,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Optimistic<\/p>\n
Sjarifudin was optimistic, however, that intensive farming
\ntechniques and favorable weather this year would compensate for
\nJava's failing productivity.<\/p>\n
He was confident that production levels for 1995 would exceed
\nthe estimate of the Central Bureau of Statistics, which has put
\nunhusked rice production at 48.45 million tons or 3.89 percent
\nhigher than last year's level.<\/p>\n
Indonesia, formerly the biggest rice importer in the world,
\nbecame self-sufficient in rice in 1984. Until 1993, the country's
\nrice exports exceeded imports, but since 1994 it has had to rely
\npartly on imports.<\/p>\n
Last year, rice production fell to 46.6 million tons -- the
\nlowest level in 15 years -- from 48.2 million tons in 1993. The
\ndecline was caused by unfavorable weather and plant diseases.<\/p>\n
Sjarifudin said yesterday that the government has launched
\nextensive programs to prevent last year's situation from
\nhappening again.<\/p>\n
Such programs include the use of urea fertilizer tablets on
\n1.2 million hectares of rice fields in Java, the repair of the
\nirrigation systems for 150,000 hectares of fields in Java and the
\nopening up of new rice fields outside Java.<\/p>\n
The programs also include planting high-yielding, \"gogo\"-type
\nrice in new fields both in Java and outside Java, using the TOT,
\nor non-tilling, system.<\/p>\n
\"Planting gogo rice with the TOT system will bring Indonesia
\nto its second 'green revolution',\" Sjarifudin said.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the chief of the National Logistics Agency, Beddu
\nAmang, was also confident that Indonesia would not face food
\nshortages in the future.<\/p>\n
He was quoted by Antara as saying that the cultivation of
\nlarge unutilized agricultural areas across the country and the
\ngovernment's extensive programs would help increase Indonesia's
\nfood supplies.<\/p>\n
Beddu was optimistic that Indonesia could regain self-
\nsufficiency in rice.<\/p>\n
\"We maintain an 'on-trend' type of self-sufficiency, which
\nmeans we import only when we need to and export when our yield
\ngains a surplus,\" he said.<\/p>\n
He said the recent decline in rice production will be
\ncompensated for in the coming years. (pwn)<\/p>\n
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