Megawati wants rice imports to be reduced

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Subang, West Java

President Megawati Soekarnoputri underlined on Monday the importance of further promoting diversification of the nation's staple food supplies in a bid to help reduce its high dependence on rice imports.

Megawati reminded Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih not to push people in the eastern provinces, who by tradition do not consume rice as their staple food, to adapt to rice growing.

Changing the habit of consuming sago in the area would substantially raise the demand for rice, Megawati said in her speech at the launching of National Rice Week in Subang, West Java.

"Let them grow their own staple foods such as corn, cassava, and sago. There is no need to alter local food consumption habits," Megawati said, adding that the time had come to recognize that the food self-sufficiency program had not been successful as national food production remained low.

The country's dependence on rice imports to meet national demand had yet to decline despite the various measures adopted by the relevant government institutions to boost production, she said.

Indonesia thus far remained a major importer of rice and other foodstuffs from the U.S., Australia and Vietnam as the country has failed to resurrect the food self-sufficiency it had achieved during the New Order era under former president Soeharto in 1984.

Because of the achievement of self-sufficiency in rice, Soeharto was presented with a medal from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1985.

The success won much praise from around the world but lulled the government into a false sense of security, especially given that rice consumption continued increasing exponentially.

The government's program of food diversification turned out to be unsuccessful and rice consumption continued to rise rapidly, forcing the country to once again become a major rice importer in early 1996.

Indonesian Farmers' Association (HKTI) data showed that the rice shortfall in the country reached between 1.5 million and 2 million tons per annum.

With an annual rice production of only 30 million tons per year, Indonesia's rice imports reached 6 million tons in 1998. This figure fell to 4 million tons in 1999 and only 1.5 million tons in 2000, according to the data.

Due to the large amount of imports, there was an oversupply of 4 million tons in the period between 2000 and 2001, causing rice prices on the domestic market to continue to fall.

Siswono Yudhohusodo, chairman of the HKTI, said on Monday that Indonesia constituted one of the biggest rice consuming countries in the world, with per capita consumption reaching 133 kilograms.

"Indonesia could face a food shortage, not because of the absence of stocks but more because of our dependence on imported foodstuffs," he told reporters on the sidelines of the launching of National Rice Week by the President.

Last January, the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) said that it needed to import at least one million tons of rice this year to meet domestic demand and also as an anticipatory measure in view of the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The effect of the weather phenomenon is predicted to set back domestic production by between 5 percent and 10 percent, while unhusked rice production is predicted to reach about 51 million tons (the equivalent of 28.8 million tons of rice) this year.

The weather phenomenon was forecast by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which said that it was likely El Nino would return this year.

Bulog is now considering importing additional rice from countries such as Thailand, China and the U.S., as well as Vietnam, this year.