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.