Prolonged dry season won't affect rice output target: Govt

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The current prolonged dry season would not have a serious impact on this year's rice production target, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Friday.

Ministry food production management director M. Jafar Hafsah said that as of August rice output had reached between 80 to 90 percent of this year's target of 48.65 million tons.

"The extended dry season will not disrupt rice output this year," he told The Jakarta Post.

"I'm optimistic we can still produce another 10 to 20 percent this year," he added.

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) predicted on Thursday that half of Indonesia would have a prolonged dry season this year by up to one month.

Some of the rice-producing areas expected to be hit by the protracted dry season are: Sukabumi, Subang, Cianjur, Garut, Tasikmalaya, Majalengka (West Java), most parts of Central Java, southern parts of East Java, central parts of North Sumatra, South Lampung, western parts of North Lampung and southeast Aceh.

According to the agency, rain in the affected areas may only start to fall in October, which will cause at least a one-month delay in rice harvesting and planting.

But there are fears that the delay will cause serious difficulties to the already financially-suffering farmers.

Because of the prolonged dry season, farmers can only start planting rice in November (assuming rains do start in October) and harvest it in January. Normally, farmers start harvesting in December.

The problem is that farmers will need money in December, when many celebrate the Muslim Ramadhan, Christmas and New Year.

Agriculture analyst Bayu Krisnamurti of the Center for Development Studies at the Bogor Agriculture University said that the price of unhusked rice usually dropped in January, but at the same time the farmers were facing the risk of higher prices for seeds and other production needs.

The price of unhusked rice increases in the run up to the festivities because of increased demand, but will go down after the festivities.

Rice is the staple food of Indonesia's more than 200 million people.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Warsinta, a farmer from Karanganyar village in Cirebon, West Java, told the Post that planting crops in November, instead of the normal September period, would make the crops prone to diseases, which in turn would seriously affect next year's rice output.

"This has been our experience," he said.

He said that to prevent such problems, the government must provide farmers with high quality seeds.