Government plays down food shortage fears

Government plays down food shortage fears

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government played down fears on Wednesday of possible food
shortages amid signs of looming severe drought which may cause
widespread failure in the rice harvest this year.

Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih said on Wednesday
that the current drought, which has already hit several rice-
growing areas, would not lead to a rice shortage because of
sufficient stock and the irrigation system in several rice-
producing areas.

"There is no problem with the rice stock, we have abundant
stock," Bungaran was quoted by Antara as saying in Balikpapan,
East Kalimantan.

Several governors in a teleconference with President Megawati
Soekarnoputri also said that rice supplies in their areas were
still sufficient and the impact of the drought was still under
control.

Megawati, nevertheless, urged the governors to keep monitoring
the impact of the drought as potentially it could become a
national problem.

Agriculture expert Pantjar Simatupang at the Center of Social
and Economic Research shared Bungaran's view, saying that there
were no strong signals of possible food shortages this year.

"I see that the current condition is a normal dry season so
there is need to worry about food shortages," he told The Jakarta
Post.

Fears that the country might suffer another severe drought
similar to the one that occurred in 1997 emerged following
reports that certain rice-producing areas had been hit by
drought.

In 1997, Indonesia was badly hit by the El Nino weather
phenomenon, causing a drop in rice output by 1.2 million tons.
Crop failures prompted a food crisis in many parts of Indonesia,
including Irian Jaya, where around 300 locals in remote districts
of Jayawijaya and Merauke died of starvation.

Rice is the staple food of Indonesia's more than 200 million
people.

The name El Nino -- Spanish for "the child" -- was bestowed by
Peruvian fishermen because it usually arrived around Christmas
time.

It is a natural climatic phenomenon, caused by a warming of
the surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, that occurs
every two to seven years and lasts up to 18 months.

There had been predictions that El Nino would return this
year.

But the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said that the
current drought would be considered a "weak El Nino."

The agency predicted that the weak El Nino would hit Indonesia
in June or July.

"This is only a weak El Nino phenomenon, so rice production
may only decline by 400,000 tons this year," a senior official at
the agriculture ministry said.

Nevertheless, experts called on the government to come up with
contingency measures to address the effect of the drought.

Agriculture expert H.S. Dillon said that such measures may
include the allocation of additional funds for the State
Logistics Agency (Bulog) to allow it to import a greater amount
of rice.

Bulog aims to import some 1.1 million tons of rice this year.
But if the El Nino phenomenon does return, the agency might be
forced to import more rice as it did in the 1997/1998 fiscal year
when it imported a record 4.1 million tons of rice.

But Bungaran was optimistic that this year's rice output
target of 53 million tons was still achievable.

Meanwhile, Minister of Resettlement and Regional
Infrastructure Soenarno said that his office in cooperation with
the Ministry of Research and Technology was considering launching
an artificial rain program in several rice-producing areas to
cope with the impact of the drought.

He added that the government would also repair several
irrigation systems including dams and river banks to minimize the
impact of the drought.

"We have lodged a proposal with the finance ministry amounting
to Rp 1.2 trillion, and some Rp 239 billion has been approved,"
Soenarno told reporters.