Government aims to focus on food security: Prakosa

Government aims to focus on food security: Prakosa

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Agriculture Muhammad Prakosa said on
Monday his programs for the year 2000 would concentrate on food
security and agribusiness development.

"We will further encourage rice cultivation to regain food
self-sufficiency," he told House Commission III for agriculture.

He said that Indonesia's per capita rice consumption averaged
135 kilograms.

With a population of 207 million, Indonesia achieved food
self-sufficiency in 1985, but became dependent on imports from
the late 1980s.

According to the National Logistics Agency, Indonesia imported
5.7 million metric tons of rice last year and 1.7 million tons in
the first nine months of this year.

"The food security program will also include diversification
of staple foods into such crops as corn and various tuber plants
to prevent too heavy a dependency on rice," said Prakosa, who
took up the agriculture portfolio late last month.

He estimated that domestic production combined with imported
stocks would be sufficient to meet consumption needs until the
end of the first quarter of next year.

Prakosa said unhusked rice production next year was expected
to reach 51 million tons, a 2.26 percent increase from this
year's output.

He set a corn production target for next year at 10.5 million
tons and soybean at 1.5 million tons.

He said 22 million families, or 58 percent of the total
population, depended on the agricultural sector for their
livelihood.

The agribusiness program would focus on smallholders through
an integrated approach encompassing production and marketing, he
said.

"We will still provide subsidies for seeds for rice and
secondary food crops, fertilizer and farm credit."

Referring to foreign assistance, Prakosa said foreign aid
disbursement to the agricultural sector from April to September
this year totaled US$10.35 million or 13.49 percent of the
budgeted total of $76.72 million.

He blamed the slow foreign project implementation on
inadequate counterpart funding, technical difficulties and
bureaucratic hurdles.

Prakosa said his ministry would require a development budget
of Rp 1.66 trillion (US$237 million) in the next fiscal year
which will only last for nine months starting in April. He said
the contracted year was because the government would base its
budget on the calendar year beginning in January, 2001.

He said Rp 967.4 billion of the development fund was projected
to be raised from foreign aid. (06)