A Plague on Java’s Paddies

Godeliva D. Sari & Maratus Sholihah Jakarta Globe 24 Apr 11;

The hairy yellow and green caterpillars that have swarmed parts of the archipelago have appeared, like mini-celebrities, in the news in papers, on TV and online for weeks.

But the cretins that are eating farmers’ crops and making schoolchildren itch are the least of Javanese rice farmers’ problems — they have bigger bugs to kill.

This season’s rice harvests have failed dramatically, thanks to the wereng — a rice hopper — and packs of rats. Driving through the district of Ngawi in East Java, wide expanses of weeds and withering rice plants have replaced the vibrant green paddy fields that characterize Java.

Taya, a 65-year-old rice farmer, owns around one hectare of rice paddies. For each harvest over several days, he brings in five to seven tons of dried, unhusked rice. This harvest easily fills the large concrete front of Taya’s old Javanese house.

This season, however, the rice hoppers have gotten to the crops first, and Taya has gleaned only 200 kilograms.

“My heart sinks when I think about my losses,” he said. “My family and I worked so hard in our fields, starting every day after morning prayer, before sunrise. My rice plants were so healthy. We were expecting a big harvest.”

“Then the rice hoppers came and within days my rice plants began to shrivel and dry. My son, who lives in another village, told me that his neighbor hanged himself because he could not bear to live with his losses.”

Joko Siswanto, head of Cepoko village in the Ngrambe subdistrict of Ngawi, said rice hoppers and rats had attacked at least 50 percent of the rice fields in Cepoko. At least 70 percent of the village’s 1,200 residents depend on the rice fields for their livelihood, according to Joko.

“Out of the 474 hectares of rice fields here, at least 250 hectares have failed to yield a harvest,” he said. “The farmers have suffered a loss of around Rp 6 million [$600] for each hectare.”

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Agriculture announced it had allocated Rp 2 trillion to compensate farmers for their losses.

“From the data that we have, there are only around 100,000 hectares of failed harvest, so for that we only need Rp 388 billion,” Agriculture Minister Suswono said.

He said that this equated to a modest Rp 2.6 million for every hectare of failed rice harvest, to be given in the form of seeds, fertilizer and money.

But in Ngawi, no one seems to have heard about government aid, and promises of help from Jakarta mean little to farmers who have to hurry to make the most of the rainy season.

“Last year we had a mild failure and there was some assistance from the government in the form of seeds, fertilizer and chemical pesticides,” Joko said.

“I distributed that government aid to the farmers associations here but there was not enough to go around. For this year’s failed harvest, which is much worse, I have not heard of any plan from the government to give aid to the farmers in my village.”

Suswono explained that the aid would only be given after the failed harvests were officially reported and that the government would monitor the distribution of the aid to the subdistricts.

Mondit, who oversees agriculture in Sekaralas village, said he had reported to the district agriculture office in Ngawi.

“I was told that the aid available was only for 12 hectares in every village,” Mondit said.

Almost 400 of the 450 hectares of rice fields in the village have experienced a complete failure, Mondit said, with an additional 10 hectares suffering a 50 percent failure.

“I told the official that if the aid for my village was only for 12 hectares, I would not be able to distribute it. People would beat me up because they would think that I had stolen the aid money,” he said.

Landowners are not the only ones who lose out economically on a bad harvest. Laborers and their families who depend on a good harvest are also now tight for cash.

Samingan, 56, a laborer in Gedoro village, earns a living working across seven fields, mostly during harvest time. Samingan gets paid with 10 percent of the harvest.

“In a normal harvest season I get between 40 and 50 kilograms of rice for every field,” he said. “So just helping around my own village I get around 300 to 400 kilograms of unhusked rice, which is plenty to feed my family until the next harvest, with some left to sell for cash too.”

Samingan is not so worried about the harvest failure, saying he can get a job outside his village if necessary.

His wife, Mutikanah, also a laborer, however, is not so optimistic. “When we have a failed harvest, we go into debt,” she said. “We borrow money from left and right, to pay school fees and also to pay other debts.

“We dig a hole to cover another hole, and we end up digging deeper and deeper. A failed harvest turns our lives upside down.”

Suyono, an 86-year-old retired farmer in Sekaralas, once worked for the government’s agriculture ministry and suggested certain measures to prevent the pests from returning next season.

“The government, at least at the district level, should facilitate the planting of an alternative crop, such as maize, soybean or sesame, for one or two seasons,” he said.

“This would sever the life cycle of the rice hopper so that when the farmers begin to plant rice again, their fields will be safe from that particular pest.

“In the meantime, the government should also develop strains of rice that are immune to the rice hopper.”

However, from the farmers’ point of view, the government is not taking the urgent action necessary to save their crops. Some farmers have left their fields barren to try their luck in Jakarta.

Others have decided to plant other crops, like chilies.

But in the absence of strategic assistance, what more can farmers do to fight these pests?

Joko, the head of Cepoko village, gave a wry chuckle: “We pray to God that the rice hoppers will stay away.”