Rice output to drop 1.8m tons this year

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The country's rice production is expected to fall this year to about 50.09 million tons from 51.89 million tons last year due to the shrinking total crop area, an official said on Wednesday.

Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) director Choiril Maksun said that the 1.8 million ton drop in unhusked rice output was inevitable as the total paddy field area had contracted to 11.42 million hectares this year from 11.79 million hectares last year as much had been transformed into housing or industrial areas.

Choiril was also quoted by Antara as saying that aside from rice, other commodities such as corn and soybean production were also projected to decline this year.

"Corn production is projected to drop to 9.12 million tons down from last year's 9.68 million tons, while soybean production is projected to drop to 862,592 tons from 1.02 million tons," he said.

He said that the corn harvest area was estimated to decline to 3.3 million hectares this year compared with 3.5 million hectares last year, while corn fields shrank to 723,029 hectares from 834,484 hectares in the previous year.

"The low purchasing power of local farmers to buy fertilizers has also affected crops," he said.