Indonesia'a rice targeted at 52 million tons this year

JAKARTA (JP): The government is upbeat the country's unhusked rice production would meet the target of 52.19 million tons this year, despite an expected drought.

Director General for Food Plants and Horticulture Amrin Kahar, said over the weekend that the 1997 output estimate would exceed last year's production of 51 million tons.

Amrin acknowledged that there could be a long draught this year but said that this possibility would not affect rice production.

He said to reach the target, the government would encourage farmers to introduce heavy yielding varieties like Memberamo, Cibodas, Maros, Batang Anai, Digul and Cilosari. These varieties are more productive than the varieties currently used by farmers, including IR 64 and Cisadane.

The government would also improve irrigation networks in farmlands and decrease the after-harvest loss of between 15 percent and 20 percent in previous years to less than 10 percent this year, he said.

Amrin said the government projected soybean production at 2.3 million tons this year, up from last year's target of 1.9 million tons.

Indonesia imports between 400,000 tons and 600,000 tons of soybean annually.

He said the government hopes to stop importing soybean by the end of the sixth five-year development plan in 1999.

The main obstacle in the efforts of raising soybean production at present is the fact that there are too few soybean leading varieties available, Amrin said.

The country's total 1.7 million-hectare soybean fields have the average productivity of 1.1 tons per hectare a year. With a leading variety, the land would be able to produce above four tons of soybean per hectare a year, he said.

The government projected corn production would reach 9.2 million tons this year, up from last year's target of 8.9 million tons.

Indonesia had imported about one million tons of corn annually, which was mainly hybrid corns for poultry food.

Poultry food is 50 percent made up by corn and 15 percent by soybeans, he said.

The ministry of agriculture projected about 500,000 hectares of land in North Sumatra, Lampung, West Java, Central Java, East Java and South Sulawesi would be planted with hybrid corns this year.

Aside from hybrid corns, the government would also promote the planting of composite corns, which are consumed as daily food by some tribes in the country, in West Nusatenggara, East Nusatenggara, East Timor, Southeast Sulawesi, and North Sulawesi.

Amrin was optimistic that Indonesia would become a corn exporter in the near future. (jsk)