Unhusked rice output fell 3.62 percent last year

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's unhusked rice output dropped 3.62 percent to 49.25 million tons last year, down from 51.1 million tons in 1996, due to prolonged drought and forest fires, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced yesterday.

Many reservoirs ran dry during last year's drought, hindering the supply of water to many rice producing regions and leading to reduced yields and crop failure. Forest fires also hindered production, the bureau said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post.

The drought affected the whole country, while the worst forest fires were confined to Kalimantan and Sumatra. Both catastrophes were blamed on the El Nio weather pattern.

The bureau said 91.41 percent of last year's rice harvest came from irrigated fields, with the remainder coming from rain-fed production.

Of the total harvest, 56.56 percent came from Java, against 55.6 percent in 1996, the bureau said.

Last year, the area in Indonesia under rice cultivation dropped by 4.3 percent, to 11.07 million hectares, down from 11.57 million hectares in 1996. On Java, the area under rice cultivation dropped by 2.12 percent, to 5.37 million hectares. On other islands, the area of land devoted to rice production fell by 6.28 percent, to 5.69 million hectares, the bureau said.

Nationwide, the area under irrigated rice cultivation dropped 4.12 percent to 9.83 million hectares. The area under rain-fed rice cultivation dropped 5.71 percent to 1.24 million hectares.

In Java, the total area of irrigated rice fields dropped 2.26 percent to 5.12 million hectares last year, while in other islands the area devoted to irrigated rice fields decreased 5.98 percent to 4.81 million hectares.

Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah has stated that the country's rice production is expected to rise by 7.5 percent in 1998, amid expectations of weather conducive to cultivating rice.

Indonesia currently imports rice from Thailand, India, China, Vietnam and Pakistan to make up for shortages in domestic production. (jsk)