Nation 'should alter' rice-dominated diet

Nation 'should alter' rice-dominated diet

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesians need to alter their diet and reduce
rice consumption because the country's production of the staple
will be lower this year due to an El Nino-induced late planting
season, experts have warned.

In a discussion at The Jakarta Post last Thursday, a team of
experts from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture said it would be
too costly to import the rice needed to enable the country's
population of 203 million to eat their usual quantities of rice
due to the rupiah's battering against the U.S. dollar.

In the discussion, the team presented what they described as
the best and worst scenarios. In the worst scenario, at least
nine million tons of rice would have to be imported if the
nation's annual rice consumption remained at the current level of
130 kgs per person.

If people could lower their annual consumption to 110 kgs per
person -- by increasing consumption of non-rice foods -- the
country would "only" have to import five million tons, the team
said.

"This scenario (importing nine million tons of rice) could
become a reality if we realize only 50 percent of the targeted
(rice) planting (of 4.2 million hectares) this year," said
Rizaldi Boer, a climatologist with the team.

However, fellow climatologist Henny Suharsono -- another team
member -- said this year's paddy planting season would be late
due to the drought induced by the freak El Nio weather
phenomenon, predicted to drag on until June this year.

Rizaldi also said that even if 90 percent of the planting
target could be met, the country would still have to import rice;
4.5 million tons if consumption levels remained at 130 kgs per
person, or 0.5 million tons if consumption levels were reduced to
110 kgs per person.

The team -- also comprising agroeconomist Suryoadiwibowo,
forestry expert Hariadi Kartodihardjo, bionutritionist Hermanu
Triwidodo and sociologists Ujang Sumarwan and Damayanti Buchori
-- warned that unless the problem of widespread imminent food
scarcities was seriously addressed, the situation could get "very
tough" to handle.

"I wonder if (government-sponsored) labor-intensive projects
to make use of idle land for agroforestry (to generate more non-
rice crops) could help," Rizaldi said.

He was referring to one of the government's latest moves to
secure the supply of rice and non-rice crops amid the country's
deepening economic crisis.

The government's other plan, dubbed by many as too ambitious,
is to convert more than one million hectares of peat into rice
fields in Central Kalimantan.

Rizaldi said 55 percent of the country's rice supply was
produced in Central and East Java.

But Rizaldi's colleague, Suryoadiwibowo, lamented the
conversion in the 1990s of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 hectares
of productive land in Java -- particularly in northern coastal
regions known as Pantura -- into industrial sites. He blamed the
conversion for contributing to the threat of food shortages.

"In the last 30 years, local varieties (of crops) have been
wiped out, leading to a dependency on rice as the sole staple
food," he said.

Hermanu Triwidodo said the prolonged drought, which has
delayed the paddy planting season and therefore affected the
national rice supply, had caused some "indigenous people with
indigenous knowledge" to turn to non-rice crops in order to fend
off a food crisis.

Hermanu cited the Blora tribe in Central Java.

"These tribespeople now refuse to sell the rice they harvested
(last year), they are keeping it for themselves, and in addition
they have also planted yams and cassava," he said.

According to Hermanu, the magnitude of this year's imminent
food scarcity would not be felt much by farmers who had their own
land. Tenant farmers who had no land of their own, on the other
hand, would feel the shortage particularly acutely, he said.
(aan)