Rice output to drop 1.8m tons this year

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.