Strong El Niño Approaching Indonesia, BMKG Urges Farmers to Adjust Planting Schedules
The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has urged farmers to immediately adjust their planting schedules as the El Niño phenomenon strengthens and is expected to extend the dry season across several parts of Indonesia. The measure is considered crucial to reducing the risk of reduced production and crop failure.
BMKG Head Teuku Faisal Fathani stated that since March 2026, the agency has projected that Indonesia would face a dry season coinciding with El Niño. As global conditions develop, the intensity of El Niño continues to show strengthening. He noted that the most at-risk areas are those south of the equator, and farmers in these regions must reschedule their planting times so that the harvest period does not coincide with the peak of the dry season.
“El Niño significantly affects the southern part of the equator. There, we must adjust the start of the planting period, perhaps accelerating it so that the end of the cycle, near harvest, does not fall during the dry season. This is to prevent it from affecting the yield,” Faisal said during a press conference at the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas office in Jakarta on Tuesday.
He added, “What we fear is crop failure, or that farmers will be reluctant to plant because of this El Niño.” The BMKG has mapped the areas south of the equator, including East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Bali, the coastal areas of Java, southern Sumatra, and southern Papua, as the regions expected to be most severely impacted.
Beyond adjusting planting schedules, the BMKG is also encouraging the use of crop varieties that are more resistant to dry conditions. This initiative is being carried out through assistance to farmers involving agricultural extension workers across various regions. Faisal further clarified that El Niño is not the dry season itself, but a global climate phenomenon that amplifies the dry season’s effects, making it longer and drier than normal. The BMKG estimates that El Niño’s impact on Indonesia will begin to weaken by mid-October 2026 with the arrival of the rainy season, although the global phenomenon is predicted to persist until May 2027.