Drought drives govt to reduce forecast of rice production

JAKARTA (JP): This year's long dry season has forced the Ministry of Agriculture to revise its forecast for the country's production of unhusked rice to 34.31 million tons from its previous forecast of 47 million tons, down 27 percent.

After attending a ceremony for the inauguration of new officials of the ministry, Director General of Food Crops and Horticulture Amrin Kahar told journalists yesterday that the decrease in production will not cause a serious shortage in rice supplies.

He said that with a stock of 1.1 million tons of rice owned by the National Logistics Agency (Bulog), the planned deliveries of 650,000 tons from countries which are repaying rice previously borrowed from Indonesia, and the planned imports of another 250,000 tons, supplies on the domestic market will be adequate.

He explained that Cuba, the Philippines and Zanzibar will deliver their repayments of rice in the second half of the year, while imports from Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam will arrive next month.

In comparison, last year's production of unhusked rice reached 47.6 million tons, the equivalent to 30.9 million tons of husked rice. The country's consumption was estimated at 25 million tons last year.

Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah, who swore in the new officials at the ceremony yesterday, acknowledged that as of this month, 189,253 hectares of rice fields have been affected by the drought and around 33,286 hectares of them have been destroyed.

"We hope this year's drought will not be as bad as that in 1991 when drought affected around 800,000 hectares of rice fields," he said.

Sjarifudin explained that the areas heavily effected by the drought are West Java, especially Indramayu and Cirebon, Central Java, particularly Ngawi and Cilacap, and East Java, particularly Boyolali.

"The affected fields are mostly those which fully depend on rainfall. Irrigated fields are not badly affected by the drought," he said.

He said the government has taken measures to help farmers whose rice fields have been affected by the drought. The government, for example, has provided rice seeds which can be planted in dry areas, and have installed water pumps.

Animal feed

At the same occasion, Sjarifudin also denied rumors saying that animal feed prices will increase due to the drought after a recent slight decline.

"There is no reason for an increase in the prices of animal feed because the government has lowered duties on imports of corn and soybean meal, materials used for the production of animal feed," he said.

The government, under a deregulation issued on June 27, has lowered import duties on animal feed ingredients from 10 percent to five percent.

After the introduction of the new regulation, prices of animal feed declined by Rp 10 to Rp 490 per kilogram.

Chairman of the Indonesian Association of Poultry Husbandry (PPUI) Alie Abubakar was quoted by Antara as saying that with the deregulation, prices should have declined around Rp 25 per kilogram. (als)