Indonesians eat less rice: Minister

Indonesians eat less rice: Minister

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Food Ibrahim Hasan has
dismissed concerns about the drought's impact on the national
rice supply, citing huge government stocks and the fact that
Indonesians are eating less rice than they used to.

"There has been a massive transformation in rice consumption
in Indonesia that it (the drought) doesn't really bother me as
the man most responsible for Indonesia's food supply," Ibrahim
was quoted by Antara as saying.

Other government officials have also allayed public concerns
about the country's rice supply with the likelihood of a
prolonged drought. They said the 3.2 million tons of rice stored
in government warehouses were sufficient to meet domestic needs
for the next 10 to 12 months.

Ibrahim said the country's per capita rice consumption, which
at one time reached between 150 and 180 kilograms a year, had
declined to 130 kilograms.

This means Indonesia needs between 28 million and 30 million
tons of rice a year, he said, noting that national production had
once reached 36 million tons.

The minister, attending a seminar on tempeh in Denpasar, said
Monday that the changing eating habits of Indonesians had
resulted from growing prosperity, with annual per capita incomes
increasing 12 fold from US$100 to $1,200 in the last 25 years.

He said Indonesians were increasingly replacing a carbohydrate
diet with fruit, meat and fish.

Ibrahim said Indonesia had enjoyed two years of good harvests
which were helping prop up the government's rice stocks.

"Although the drought is affecting many rice fields in
Indonesia, we have enough food stock without having to resort to
imports," he said.

North Sumatra is said to be the hardest hit by the drought
with 14,054 hectares of rice fields reportedly affected.

But the province's food depot chief administrator, Col. Moch.
Santoso, said there were not yet any signs of food shortage and
prices remained stable, Antara reported.

He said a meeting at the Food Logistics Agency in Jakarta last
week had discussed ways to overcome possible food shortages in
certain regions.

In West Java, drought had affected 12,420 hectares of rice
fields, Antara said.

But the acting chief of West Java's Office for Food Plants,
Ali Maskoen, said that none of the province's farmers had
declared their harvests a total failure.

He warned that more rice fields could be affected if there was
no rain by the end of the month and that some rice fields might
be declared a total failure.

The government had already set up a command post to deal with
crises emerging from the drought, he added.

To overcome the drought, farmers have introduced alternate
irrigation for their paddies and others have been backed up by
water pumps.

In South Sulawesi, local officials said the province would
remain one of the major "rice bowl" areas in eastern Indonesia
although drought had already affected thousands of hectares of
paddies. (09/emb)