Drought leaves rice belt facing harvest failure

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Indramayu, West Java

Defying warnings from officials of an extended dry season, many farmers in Indramayu regency, West Java grow rice mostly because they have no other option.

Officials from local agriculture and irrigation agencies told The Jakarta Post recently that they had continuously alerted the farmers since early this year of possible water shortages.

"We had estimated since last October that we could only serve some 65,000 hectares during the dry season. But the farmers are cultivating some 90,000 hectares, which is well above our capacity," head of Indramayu Irrigation Agency's operational and maintenance division, Rukanda, said.

"More problems arise when farmers from outside the designated area pump out water for their own fields, causing the upstream farmers to experience a water shortage," he said.

Known as one of three largest rice-producing regencies in West Java, Indramayu produces more than 300,000 kilograms of rice each year as do Karawang and Subang regencies. West Java is one of Indonesia's major rice belts.

Indramayu produced some 1.3 million tons of unhusked rice or the equivalent of 787,401 tons of rice in 2001. That year the regency enjoyed a surplus of some 477,000 tons of rice which accounted for 13 percent of West Java's stock or 3 percent of the national rice stock.

The latest data at the Indramayu Agriculture Agency shows that some 8,000 hectares out of 110,000 hectares of paddy fields in the regency have been declared a failure. Another 4,700 hectares are severely hit by the current drought.

There are 3,044 hectares of failed rice crops in Losarang, 1,602 hectares in Kroya and 1,241 hectares in Arahan.

Losarang district has suffered the most as it is situated in the central part of Indramayu and at the end of both irrigation systems of the Jatiluhur dam and Rentang reservoir.

Head of the agriculture agency's staple crop division, Muhaimin, admitted that farmers had gambled by expecting the dry season would somehow be wetter than usual, as happened in the past two years.

"The farmers were encouraged by heavy rain in April and May so they planted rice hoping the rain would last until July as happened last year.

"They could not cultivate other crops, such as vegetables or watermelons, as their field were inundated with rain. The only option was rice," he said.

June, however, saw a drastic drop in rainfall compared to May or June 2001.

There were only an average of 9.5 millimeters of rain recorded by 19 weather stations all over Indramayu in June compared to 56.5 mm in May. In June last year, 141.5 mm of rainfall was recorded.

The farmers, however, looked happy with the rains that fell last week, which was enough to guarantee a month's water supply for their paddy fields.

Rukanda said his office recorded an increase in water volume from 5 cubic meters to some 23 cubic meters in Cipelang western irrigation canal of the Rentang reservoir and an increase to 26 cubic meters in the reservoir's eastern canal in Sindupraja.

Rentang dam supplies water to some 66,000 hectares in eastern Indramayu while the western area obtains water from the Jatiluhur reservoir in Purwakarta regency.

Despite the recent rains, the National Meteorological and Geophysical Agency official in charge of weather forecasts and services, Ahmad Zakir, warned farmers to be ready for even lower rainfall in the coming months.

"There were rains in the northern coastal area and western parts of West Java. But it was an isolated case and we cannot expect too much of it.

"Farmers must be ready for even hotter days in August," he said.