VIVAnews - Agriculture Minister Suswono is concerned over the recent bizarre weather. He is hoping the climate would not be an obstacle for the cultivating season and affect national rice production.
“Let’s pray that the climate would be cooperative,” the minister said at the office of Coordinating Minister for the Economy after attending a meeting on food sustainability in Jakarta on Wednesday, March 3.
“Hopefully the food self-sufficiency program could be re-established this year. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) is pessimistic that it would only go up 0.88 percent this year. But the implementation could usually go further,” he said.
According to him, if the environment is supportive, national productivity could climb up to 3.2 percent.
Earlier this week, BPS said the government’s chance in rice export is getting smaller.
BPS Head Rusman Heriawan said the assumption was based on the fact that national production only had a slight increase of 0.88 percent.
The small chance is also due to the increasing number of population, which has led to escalated number of domestic demand. “If we can’t keep up with that, there will be inflation,” Heriawan said at the BPS office on Monday, March 1.
“There were only a few harvests this year, which explains the high inflation,” he said.
He also said rice inflation is a normal thing to happen in the beginning of a year. The price usually drops after March.
BPS predicts Indonesia would be able to produce up to 64.9 million tons of dried husked rice. The number is 0.88 percent higher than the country’s temporary production in 2009 of 64.33 million tons.
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Translated by: Nataya Ermanti
