Lack of funds prevents Irianese transmigrants from planting rice

R.K. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

Transmigrants, the provincial backbone for rice production in the easternmost province of Irian Jaya, admit to having stopped planting rice due to financial problems.

A transmigrant said on Wednesday that he and most of his fellow transmigrant families in the resettlement areas of East and West Koya, in Jayapura regency, had stopped planting rice three years ago.

"We found it difficult to afford the cost of rice seeds after the government stopped making loans," Supater, a 59-year-old transmigrant from Java, told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the World Food Day commemoration held at the Koya resettlement site, some 40 kilometers from Jayapura.

World Food Day fell on Oct. 16.

"In the past each family head got Rp 1,500,000 in loan to buy rice seeds before the planting season."

The ceremony was led by Andi Baso, deputy governor for administrative affairs.

Supater said he did not have any idea why the government had stopped the loans. "Now many of us cannot plant rice in our fields."

As many as 500 transmigrant families have been living in Koya since 1982. Some 35 families are local resettlers (Irian Jaya families), while the rest are transmigrants from Java.

On Tuesday head of the provincial logistics depot (Dolog) Sutono said that Irian Jaya imported 130,000 tons of rice annually from Surabaya, East Java, and Makassar, South Sulawesi, to meet local demand.

"The arable land in the province has not yet been properly exploited," he said. "However, the province still produces rice. This year the provincial administration has bought 5,600 tons of rice from Merauke."

Without revealing the actual amount of rice needed by the province annually, Sutono said that Merauke's total rice production was still too small to meet the province's demand for rice.

Sutono said, however, that the fertility of the province should be fully exploited to meet local demands for food.

"People could diversify their agricultural crops so as not to fully depend on rice," he said. "They could also plant corn, sago palm or various types of tuber."

Indigenous Irianese eat tubers as their staple food. Many of them started to eat rice after transmigration programs were introduced in the 1980s.

According to Sutono, the provincial administration would not change the people's habit of planting and eating tubers. "The main problem here is human resources: We need people capable of exploiting the natural opportunities."

In anticipation of the increasing demand for rice for the coming Christmas and year-end celebrations Dolog had made 36,000 tons of rice available. "That amount will be sufficient until February next year."