13 provinces suffer from food shortages: Report

JAKARTA (JP): A government study has revealed 13 out of Indonesia's 27 provinces were facing food shortages. Five of these provinces were categorized as having "very poor food security" and in need of immediate assistance.

Quoting a report issued by the office of deputy for regional affairs of the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), Antara identified on Wednesday the five provinces in dire food crises as Irian Jaya, Maluku, East Timor, East Nusa Tenggara and Southeast Sulawesi.

The study, in the form of questionnaires sent out to 4,028 district administrations in February, said 55 percent of the districts in the five provinces have been categorized as having "poor" and "very poor" food security.

The worst of the five was Irian Jaya, the report said.

"As many as 47.06 percent of 173 districts in Irian Jaya have very poor food security, followed by 29.4 percent which experience poor food security," the report said.

The second worst was East Nusa Tenggara with 68.5 percent of its 124 districts suffering from very poor and poor food security, followed by Maluku, Southeast Nusa Tenggara and East Timor with 58.8 percent, 58.3 percent and 55.5 percent respectively.

The food security was gauged by indexing residents' purchasing power, distribution and rice production per capita, according to the report which was based on the response from 1,961 returned questionnaires.

The government said last September that 17.1 million families were facing food shortages nationwide.

The Bappenas report also identified 16 provinces as facing education problems, including high dropouts and non-schooling rates. Six provinces were categorized as having the poorest state of education in their districts, namely: East Timor, Central Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara, Irian Jaya and Aceh.

Provinces with poor and very poor health status were East Nusa Tenggara, East Timor and Irian Jaya. (swe)