Soeharto tells district heads to boost field inspection
Soeharto tells district heads to boost field inspection
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto told district heads yesterday
to conduct site inspections to make sure that farmers are
properly using urea tablet fertilizer to bolster the country's
self sufficiency in rice.
"District heads have to serve the people, not the other way
around," President Soeharto told 49 district heads from Java
provinces who were summoned for a special meeting at his Bina
Graha presidential office yesterday.
Soeharto said the campaign to promote the use of urea tablets
had not yet achieved the desired results due to snags in the
distribution of the tablet fertilizer.
"If (you) do not make farm visits, you will never know if
there are some problems. Then it will be too late for you to take
measures to overcome them," Soeharto told the 49 district heads
-- 15 from West Java, 15 from Central Java, 15 from East Java and
4 from Yogyakarta.
A number of cabinet ministers and governors from provinces in
Java were also at yesterday's meeting.
At the meeting, Soeharto voiced his concern with the
implementation of the credit program for farmers. He asked the
district heads to help facilitate the disbursement of bank loans
so that farmers could buy urea tablets on time.
Urea tablets are best used when the rice seedlings are in the
very early stages of growth, between seven days and 12 days old.
"After that period, it will be useless," Soeharto said.
Commenting on the problem of bad loans, Soeharto said,
"Actually farmers do not want to cheat. The problem is that they
are so poor that they are often forced to use the bank loans for
other purposes."
Soeharto then asked the district heads to properly plan the
disbursement of bank loans to the farmers and the distribution of
urea tablets in their respective districts prior to the 1995-1996
rice planting season.
"This is your homework. I have decided that the next rice
planting season starts on Nov. 1 and the harvest time starts on
Feb. 25, next year. I want you district heads to make adequate
plans far ahead and then submit them to Bina Graha. I want to see
the results," Soeharto told the district heads.
President Soeharto again urged rice farmers to shift to urea-
fertilizer tablets from the traditional form of granular
fertilizer.
The agriculture ministry's studies have proven that by using
urea tablets, farmers can use up to 50 percent less fertilizer
per area. Farmers usually need 250 kilograms of granular urea
fertilizer per hectare of rice. However, they need only 125
kilograms to 187 kilograms of urea tablets per hectare.
Soeharto said the aim of urea tablets is to increase rice
production, especially in Java, to regain the self sufficiency in
rice Indonesia achieved in 1984.
Because of widespread floods early last year and a severe dry
season afterwards, Indonesia's production dropped by 3.2 percent
to 46.64 million tons of unhusked rice last year.
The lower output forced the government, through the National
Logistics Agency, to import 900,000 tons of husked rice late last
year and another 380,000 tons early this year.
Referring to Bulog which is in charge of managing the stocks
of such essential food commodities as rice, sugar, wheatflour,
soybean and cooking oil, the President said the agency would be
maintained.
"I am aware of the criticisms of Bulog as a monopoly which is
contrary to the free market mechanism.
"I hereby reaffirm that Bulog will be maintained because this
agency is assigned to help stabilize the prices of farm
commodities at fair levels and to secure adequate stocks of
essential commodities," Soeharto said.
He added that Indonesia does not subscribe to a completely
free market mechanism but a managed market system.(rid/vin)