El Nino threatens Indonesian farmers’ livelihood

The Jakarta Post 22 Aug 09;

The El Nino heat wave, predicted to strike in September, will potentially reduce the country’s rice production by at least 750,000 tons, a discussion heard on Saturday.

“The Agricultural Ministry even predicted recently that the decline in rice production could reach 1.6 million tons due to El Nino,” said Darmayanto, a member of the House of Representatives Commission IV on agriculture.

“That means around 300,000 farmers and their families will face a serious economic problem.”

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has predicted that rice production this year would reach 60.93 million tons, slightly higher from last year’s 60.25 million tons.

State Logistics Agency (Bulog) chief Mustafa Abubakar expressed his confidence the national rice stock would remain adequate despite the El Nino weather anomaly.

“We plan to increase our rice reserves to five million tons from currently 2.5 million tons to anticipate prolonged drought as a result of El Nino,” he said.

The country currently has about 12.4 million hectares of rice fields, 4 million of which are irrigated.

Mustafa said that without securing extra reserves the country would not run out of rice stock for at least in the next three or four months.

“If we manage to increase the reserves, we hope to provide a sufficient back-up of rice supply for the next five or six months.” (hdt)