Rice farmers may be hit hard next year: Expert or Expert paints gloomy picture for rice farmers

Adianto P.Simamora The Jakarta Post Jakarta

The current delay in rice planting might not lead to a food crisis, but will certainly hit tens of millions of farmers hard next year, an agricultural expert said over the weekend.

The delayed planting will result in a drop in the country's rice output, but, Bayu Krisnamurti, the director of the Center for Development Studies at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said the nation could cover the shortage by importing rice.

However, as a result of the delay, paddy farmers will lose the opportunity to harvest their crops in December, when rice prices are usually on the rise, he said. They will have to harvest crops between the end of January and the start of February next year, when rains potentially pose a problem for their harvest, Bayu said.

"I have not seen a situation like this for over ten years. Next year will be very gloomy for more than 20 million farmers in the nation," Bayu told The Jakarta Post.

Farmers normally plant rice in October and harvest their crops in December in the final planting season of the year.

However, because of an extended drought, farmers have delayed planting their crops.

The government has predicted that rains would most likely fall again in November, allowing farmers to soon plant their crops.

Bayu said the price of rice normally increases in the run-up to year-end festivities, including Christmas and New Year, due to an increase in demand, but then falls after the festivities.

If farmers start planting in November, they will have to sell their crops cheaper between January and February, Bayu said.

Furthermore, he said, rice harvested during this period is usually of a lower quality due to excessive rain.

"It's really a sad, sad situation for farmers," Bayu said.

Ato Suprapto, the director general of agricultural facilities at the Ministry of Agriculture, said on Thursday that the rainy season had started in Sumatra and Kalimantan ending a drought that lasted for months.

In Java, Ato said, rains would fall again in November based on predictions from the Geophysics and Meteorology Agency (BMG), the National Atomic Agency (Batan) and the National Aviation and Space Agency (Lapan).

However, the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOOA) predicted in its recent report that the drought would continue for several months in several parts of Indonesia.

This, the agency said, would force Indonesia to import more rice.

Separately, Pantjar Simatupang, an agricultural expert of the Center for Social and Economic Research, said the current delay in rice planting would certainly have an impact on farmers' income, but he predicted that the rice harvest would be good in the first harvest season of next year.

If the rains fall in November as predicted by the government's agencies, farmers need to start planting rice in December as they have to prepare their land for a month. They will then harvest their crops between February and March.

"Rice harvested during the period is normally of a good quality because of the dry season," he said.

"Certainly, there will be an impact because of the current delay in rice planting. It will definitely jeopardize the planting and harvest schedule for next year," he said.

Indonesia achieved self-sufficiency in rice in 1984, for which then president Soeharto received an award from the United Nations' Food Agriculture Organization and Production, however, since then rice production has declined and Indonesia imported almost five million tons of rice in 1999 amid the economic crisis.

Last year, Indonesia imported 1.5 million tons of rice, according to the Central Statistics Bureau (BPS).