Indonesia Is Short of 195 Thousand Tons of Rice
Tuesday, 14 November, 2006 | 14:22 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: It is estimated that Indonesia needs up to 195 thousand tons of rice by the end of this year. There is a gap between rice production and consumption rate.

The result of the Center for the policy of Economic-Social Analysis at the Agriculture Department showed that the estimate of rice production 2006 is only 30.395 million tons. The consumption rate is 31.130 million tons.

“The national rice situation is critical,” said Pantjar Simatupang, an observer.

He said that the research result is based on simulation of timeline data between 1969 and 2005. The data includes the measurement of the rice field harvested and rice productivity, and consumption. “Rice production in 2006 rose, but not in line with population growth,” said Pantjar.

Currently rice production growth, according to him, is still under the population growth rate which reaches 1.3 percent per year. Nonetheless, population growth will cause the rice consumption rise.

It is estimated that the rice deficit will be higher in the following years. “Unless there is an increase in production capacity ,” said Pantjar.

According to Pantiar, it is predicted that national rice production will decline along with the decrease of the harvest field measurement. This year alone, national harvest measurement is only 11.731 million hectares, and will rise slightly in 2007 to 11.732 million hectares. However, the field measurement will keep decreasing between 2008 and 2010 to only 11.1 million hectares. At the same time, land fertility will also decrease.

Currently the national average dry unhusked rice production is 4.58 tons per hectare. This will go down again in 2007 to 4.57 tons per hectare. “And it will continue go down,” he said.

An agricultural economic observer Bustanul Arifin is of the opinion that national rice production growth should have been between 4.5 to 5 percent per year. “If it’s below that, we have a problem,” he said without explaining what the problem is.


Ewo Raswa