Lampung braces for rice stock deficit this year

Oyos Saroso, The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

Rice production in Lampung has significantly decreased this year due to recent natural disasters in the province, with at least a 15,800 ton shortage in stocks compared with 2001.

Until last December, the provincial logistics agency (Dolog) accommodated only 75,000 tons of unhulled paddy or 40,700 tons of rice from farmers. In the previous year, it bought 93,000 tons of unhulled paddy from them.

In addition, there are now only 27,000 tons of rice being stored in Dolog's local warehouses, though the state agency has to distributed 10,000 tons of rice per month and allocates at least 9,500 tons for civil servants, including military and police officers.

For the quota of poor people in the province, Dolog allocates 500 tons of rice under a low pricing scheme.

"It means Dolog still lacks at least 15,800 tons of rice stocks for 2002," Lampung's Dolog head of operations Bachtaruddin told The Jakarta Post.

To address the shortages, he said his office was considering buying rice from other provinces or importing it again.

Bachtaruddin expressed concern over the fact that Lampung could not rely on its own production this year though the province is known as one of the nation's rice barns.

He said that over the last three years, Lampung Dolog's rice stocks depended solely on local production.

However, he denied the sharp decrease in rice prices in several subdistricts in the province following last month's harvest. "It's not true that the rice price went down to Rp 850 per kilogram because Dolog's task force has been continually buying rice and apart from that many buyers from other regions are interested in rice from Lampung."

Unhulled rice is officially sold at between Rp 1,095, 1,285 and 1,519 per kilogram.

Bachtaruddin said that up until March 7, Dolog had collected 10,400 tons of unhulled rice from all regencies in Lampung through at least 40 private contractors.

The collection of unhulled rice involved five task forces with an accommodation capacity of 600 tons, he added.

"Since the last three years, village unit cooperatives (KUD) have no longer been involved in providing rice for Dolog from farmers. Many KUDs have been blacklisted, so they are not illegible to serve as partners," he said.

Head of the Lampung agriculture office Masdulhaq said that the price of unhulled rice from farmers set at between Rp 1,200 and Rp 1,300 per kilogram was still normal.

He admitted that in several remote subdistricts, like Rawajitu, unhulled rice was sold at Rp 850 per kilogram, adding that the price is also still normal due to difficult transportation to the areas, where it takes more than three hours by motorized boat.

Masdulhaq brushed aside claims that the shortages of 15,800 tons of rice stocks in Lampung were because of a decline in the province's production.

It was merely prompted by farmers reluctance to sell all their harvest produce at once amid the decreasing prices, he argued.

"Unlike last year, farmers are holding some of their unhulled rice until the price improves," he said.

The price of unhulled rice has decreased sharply to between Rp 800 and Rp 900 per kilogram in the four regencies of Talangbawang, Tenggamus, Central Lampung and South Lampung, where farmers were harvesting.

The prices could further decrease as Dolog had not given any sign that it would intervene and buy the rice directly from farmers, even though they would be producing 360,000 tons of rice in total this month alone.

Suparno, a 52-year old farmer at Karya Jitu Mukti village in Talangbawang, admitted that he has no longer enjoyed the results of his harvest as the rice was bought at only Rp 800 per kilogram.

He said the low price would only cover the production cost of Rp 3 million for one hectare of rice field. "The price of Rp 800 per kilogram means, farmers will earn only Rp 3.2 million for four tons of rice harvested from one hectare of farm land," he added.