Jakarta will not face rice crisis, vows authority
JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta chapter of the Logistics Agency (Dolog Jaya) has assured Jakartans that the stock of rice during the current drought season will be adequate to meet demand.
"Until yesterday, the agency supplied approximately 700 tons of rice to the Jakarta's nine major wholesale markets," the agency chief, Arifin Hidayat, said at 'coffee morning' gathering at the City Hall yesterday.
He said that the city population consumed 1,800 tons to 2,000 tons daily.
According to Arifin, the agency is expected to receive around 25,000 tons of rice from West Java, East Java and South Sulawesi between the fourth week of July and the first week of August.
"Jakarta has an adequate rice supply even until March 1995 because we have 135,000 tons of rice in our warehouses" he said.
Arifin said that the agency has set a new price of Rp 685 (32 U.S. cents) for a kilogram middle quality rice.
"But the retailers can not sell the rice at more than Rp 700 a kilogram," he said.
The rice prices in wholesale markets here have increased consistently since early this month as drought continues in some important rice production areas.
Governor Surjadi Soedirdja has issued a directive to the agency to conduct the necessary measures through market operation to halt the escalating prices of staple foods, especially rice, in the city markets.
"It was time Dolog Jaya took precautionary measures because it is not impossible that drought in production areas would impact the supply of rice to the city," Surjadi said.
According to a recent research conducted by Bisnis Indonesia daily in Jakarta's major markets during the last two weeks, the prices of some best quality rices like Cianjur Kepala increased from Rp 1,100 to Rp 1,400 per kilogram, Saigon Bandung, increased from Rp 900 to Rp 1,000 while Cisadane from Rp 750 to Rp 850.
Normal
However, the newspaper reported yesterday that the price had returned to normal because the agency has intervened by supplying around 700 tons of rice in the major markets in Kebayoran Lama, Klender, Tomang and Tanah Abang and some other places.
Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah told newsmen recently that, as of this month, 189,253 hectares of rice fields had been affected by the drought, 33,286 hectares of them were seriously damaged.
In 1991 the drought affected around 800,000 hectares of the country's rice fields.
The minister said that the drought affected important rice producer areas such as Cirebon and Indramayu in West Java, Ngawi and Cilacap in Central Java and Boyolali in East Java.
The current drought has also hit Jakarta's largest rice producers such as Karawang and Cirebon in West Java.
The Meteorological and Geophysics Agency reported on July 8 that the widespread drought threatens vast food crops across Indonesia. Some parts of Java, Bali, East and West Nusa Tenggara, East Timor, South Sumatra and the western part of South and Central Sulawesi have been hit hard by the drought.
Arifin said that the Logistics Agency was also ready to help the surrounding areas in facing possible rice crisis.
He also said that the agency had an adequate stock of other primary commodities which include sugar, flour and soya beans. (03)