Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Domestic rice production in the January-April period this year is estimated to drop to below the average figure, an Agrilculture Ministry official said.
Ning Pribadi, head of the Food Distribution Center of the ministry`s Food Resilience Agency, said here on Tuesday normally rice production in the period would contribute 60 percent of national production in a year but "now it has not reached the level and is even far below average figure for the period."
Speaking at a press conference on national rice policy, Ning said the drop in national rice production in the period was caused by weather conditions which had not been good in the country.
He said the planting season in 2006/2007 was delayed because rain fell late. He said the rain only fell at the end of December or early January, 2007 while it should have happened in September-October, 2006.
Based on the Central Bureau of Statistics`(BPS) prediction harvests in the January-April period would only produce 25.95 million tons of dried unhulled rice while the agriculture ministry predicted it would reach around 23.99 million tons.
The BPS predicts production of dried unhulled rice in the period would drop by 3.45 million tons or 13 percent compared with production in the same period before.
Unhulled rice production in the May-August period is estimated to rise by 0.94 million tons and in the September-December period to rise again by 1.22 million tons.
To compensate for the drop in the January-April period, he said, the government was planning to boost production in the May-August and October-December period.
He said "condition of domestic food supply in 2007 will not be worse than in 2006 if everything goes well and no natural disaster and weather irregularities happen."
The director general of domestic trade, Ardiansyah Parman, meanwhile said the government would stop rice import if domestic supply was sufficient.
"The government now imports rice because the Logistics Agency has difficulties maintaining its stock with domestic rice," he said.
The government is currently importing up to 500,000 tons of rice to increase the national stock to 1.2 million tons.
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