Dutchman wins prestigious prize for work with seeds and small farmers

DutchNews, June 11, 2019

Photo: Marcel Bakker via World Food Prize Foundation

This year’s World Food Prize, the most important global prize in the field of farming and food, has been awarded to Dutchman Simon Groot for his work in helping millions of smallholder farmers to use good seeds. 

This work, the organising committee says, ‘enabled them to to earn greater incomes through enhanced vegetable production, benefitting hundreds of millions of consumers with greater access to nutritious vegetables for healthy diets’. 

‘Simon Groot has dedicated his life to improving the livelihoods of millions around the world,’ Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, said at the award announcement on Monday. 

Groot, now 84, and his partner in the Philippines, started East-West Seed in 1982. Today, the team has developed vegetable varieties with enhanced disease resistance and significantly higher yields which are now used across Asia and beyond. The company serves 19 million smallholder farmers in more than 60 tropical countries.

Announcing the 2019 World Food Prize Laureate, from the Netherlands, Mr. Simon N. Groot. #FoodPrize19 pic.twitter.com/LzKIefa3Nw

— The World Food Prize (@WorldFoodPrize) 10 juni 2019

In an interview with the Volkskrant, Groot said he thinks it regrettable that seed production is in the hands of a few big companies such as Bayer/Monsanto and Syngenta. 

The big companies, he said, are limiting supplies because there is little money to be made from minor breeds. ‘Big companies look at the importance of shareholders,’ he said. ‘Traditional seed companies put the interests of farmers first. We are friends to farmers.’ 

The prize was founded in 1986 by Norman E. Borlaug, recipient of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Groot is the first Dutch national to take the prize.

Tanzania embraces new system of growing rice

Deutsche Welle, 19 December 2013

Residents of Morogoro,Tanzania,have adapted a new system of growing rice that is weather friendly and cost effective.

Until recently, farmers in this village located 218km (135 miles) from the capital Dar es Salaam, believed it was impossible to grow rice without flooding the field, but due to water shortages, the new technique known as 'System of Rice Intensification' (SRI), reduces the need to supply water to the fields.

With this system seedlings are grown in a non-flooded nursery and replanted, at a shallow depth of only 1-2 cm deep in a paddy field.

The plot is then left to dry until cracks become visible when another thin layer of water is introduced, unlike in the past when large amounts of water were supplied in the field.

As the rice seedlings grow some farmers irrigate every evening, others leave the fields to dry over a 3-8 day period, depending on soil and climate conditions.

With this system farmers have been able to reduce on the use of chemical fertilizers and production costs and as a result, their incomes have greatly improved.

Happy farmers

Mwajuma Ramadhani, a farmer from Kiroka village can now plan for her children's education better than before as she doesn't have to worry about food for her family anymore.

The 47-year-old widow is among farmers who can testify on the benefits of the new system. “I am very happy with this technique because since I started using it, my crop yields have gone up, she told DW,” I can now get enough food for my family and sell the surplus.”

From her humble beginnings, Ramadhani hardly got 5 bags of rice per acre when she was still using the old method, but with SRI her yields have remarkably improved.

“I harvested 30 bags of rice last season and that was the highest since I started using this method” she said.

Morogoro Rural Agriculture Field Officer who oversees farming activities in the village, Edith Kija told DW that with SRI paddy seedling can thrive well with minimum soil moisture.

“We tell them to keep a distance of 25cms between paddy seedlings to provide room for the robust growth and redistribution of the stems,” she said.

Every farmer in Morogoro has a positive story to tell about SRI because the new technique has not only enabled them to conserve land but also be mindful about the effects of climate change.

International support

Under the project,' Strengthening the capacity for climate Change Adaptation through Sustainable Land and Water Management', the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has trained 268 farmers with multiple skills to prevent soil erosion, reduce deforestation and manage water and soil fertility.

FAO representative to Tanzania Diana Tempelman, told DW that the agency promotes conservation agriculture in Tanzania with the view to reduce carbon emissions and also to increase carbon sequestration in the soil.

“We are aiming to work together with local populations in Tanzania who can identify crop varieties suitable for drier circumstances,” she said.

Fighting soil erosion

To address soil erosion, farmers in Tanzania have been taught to dig contours bunds locally known in the Swahili language as ‘Fanya Chini' in order to maintain soil fertility.

“We trained them how to align the contours using local tools, we also encouraged them to grow barrier crops including pineapples and bananas to strengthen the bunds,” said Henry Mahoo, a professor of agricultural engineering who supervised the project.

Rajabu Juma is one of the veteran farmers at Kiroka who finds water and soil management skills useful as he applies them on his farm.

“My friends see digging of trenches as an inconvenience, but I have seen the benefit since I am able to retain water and soil fertility,” he said.

The 60-year-old is among Kiroka farmers who have accepted multiple interventions to protect their livelihoods.

Climate change impacts

According to Economics of Climate Change study published in 2011, the country's average temperature has increased over the last 30 years with rainfall becoming erratic.

The government estimates that, without proper adaptation, yields from crops like maize could fall by up to 16% by 2030 which translates into a million tonne per year.

According to Prof. Mahoo, climate change has triggered the dwindling of water resources which have affected irrigation schemes thus causing water conflicts.

“We may not be the major cause of climate change but since it is a global issue we are entangled,” he said.

Prof. Mahoo said rice intensification system has been effective to most farmers in the lowlands who are affected by water shortages.“

Most farmers are better off with this method because rice production can increase up to four folds, last year we had a farmer who produced11.6 tonnes of rice per hectare,” he said.

Related Article:

Roots breakthrough for drought-resistant rice

'Monsanto Protection Act' To Expire, Won't Be Part Of Continuing Resolution

The Huffington Post, Ashley Alman, 09/24/2013

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said the so-called Monsanto Protection Act
 favored by Republicans won't be included in a bill intended to prevent a
 government shutdown Sept. 30. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty
Image)

The so-called Monsanto Protection Act is set to expire, and will not be included in a bill designed to avert a government shutdown, according to a statement Tuesday from the press office of Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

House Republicans earlier this month released legislation that would include an extension of the Monsanto measure in their continuing resolution. The measure shields sellers of genetically modified seeds from lawsuits, even if the resulting crops cause harm.

Merkley has opposed the measure since it quietly passed in March, when it was attached to another spending resolution. Merkley led an online petition to oppose the extension, and unsuccessfully offered an amendment to the farm bill intended to kill what opponents have dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act. Monsanto is the world's largest seed company.

Merkley worked with legislative leaders to ensure the Farmer Assurance Provision rider would expire before it could be extended. In a statement Tuesday evening, the senator applauded those who helped him to avert the extension:

This is a victory for all those who think special interests shouldn’t get special deals. This secret rider, which was slipped into a must-pass spending bill earlier this year, instructed the Secretary of Agriculture to allow GMO crops to be cultivated and sold even when our courts had found they posed a potential risk to farmers of nearby crops, the environment, and human health. I applaud the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have worked hard to end this diabolical provision.

The rider is set to expire at the end of the month.

Seeds Of Death - Full Movie

Published on May 24, 2013

In preparation of the global March Against Monsanto, you are invited to watch our award-winning documentary Seeds of Death free.

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/

The leaders of Big Agriculture--Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta--are determined that world's populations remain ignorant about the serious health and environmental risks of genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture. Deep layers of deception and corruption underlie both the science favoring GMOs and the corporations and governments supporting them.

This award-winning documentary, Seeds of Death, exposes the lies about GMOs and pulls back the curtains to witness our planet's future if Big Agriculture's new green revolution becomes our dominant food supply.

A Question and Answer fact sheet deconstructing Monsanto's GM claims and Big Agriculture's propaganda to accompany the film is available online.

Protesters make their point to Monsanto in Los Angeles, California,

May 25, 2013. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

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Scientists warn EPA on Monsanto corn rootworm

Reuters, by Carey Gillam, Fri Mar 9, 2012

French beekeepers demonstrate to protest the use of genetically-modified

 organisms in front of French Monsanto headquarters in Bron, near Lyon,

 January 20, 2012. Sign reads, ''GMO = Death of Bees'' and banner in

background says, ''Monsanto get out''. (Credit: Reuters/Robert Pratta)

(Reuters) - A group of plant scientists is warning federal regulators that action is needed to mitigate a growing problem with biotech corn that is losing its resistance to plant-damaging pests.

The stakes are high - corn production is critical for food, animal feed and ethanol production, and farmers have increasingly been relying on corn that has been genetically modified to be toxic to corn rootworm pests.

"This is not something that is a surprise... but it is something that needs to be addressed," said Joseph Spencer, a corn entomologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, part of the University of Illinois.

Spencer is one of 22 academic corn experts who sent a letter dated March 5 to the Environmental Protection Agency telling regulators they are worried about long-term corn production prospects because of the failure of the genetic modifications in corn aimed at protection from rootworm.

Monsanto introduced its corn rootworm protected products, which contain a protein referred to as "Cry3Bb1," in 2003 and they have proved popular with farmers in key growing areas around the country. Biotech corn sales are a key growth driver of sales at Monsanto.

The corn rootworm product is supposed to reduce the need to put insecticides into the soil, essentially making the corn plants toxic to the worms that try to feed on their roots.

But plant scientists have recently found evidence that the genetic modification is losing its effectiveness, making the plants vulnerable to rootworm damage and potentially significant production losses.

The scientists said in their letter to EPA that the situation should be acted upon "carefully, but with a sense of some urgency."

As concerns have mounted over the last year that Monsanto's rootworm-protected products were losing their effectiveness, Monsanto has said the problem is small and has said the products continue to provide corn farmers with "strong protection against this damaging pest."

Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, has recommended growers rotate the corn with its biotech soybeans, use another of its biotech corn products and use insecticides to try to address the problem.

"Rootworm performance inquiries in 2011 were isolated to less than 0.2 percent of the acres planted with Monsanto rootworm-traited corn hybrids," said Danielle Stuart, a Monsanto spokeswoman. "In all of these cases, Monsanto is working very closely with the farmer and has provided best management practices for the upcoming season on each of these fields. "

The problems with insect resistance have been reported in parts of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Continuing to plant a failing technology only increases the resistance development risk, the scientists said in their letter. Moreover, they say, the rootworm-protected BT corn is being planted in areas that have no need for it, often because there are few alternative seed options. Scarcity of non-BT corn seed is a concern, they said.

Using insecticides along with the biotech corn as Monsanto has advised is not a good approach, according to the scientists, because it elevates production costs for farmers and masks the extent and severity of the building insect resistance.

"Recommendations to apply insecticides to protect transgenic Bt corn rootworm corn strikes us as a clear admission that the Cry3Bb1 toxin is no longer providing control adequate to protect yield," the scientists wrote.

"When insecticides overlay transgenic technology, the economic and environmental advantages of rootworm-protected corn quickly disappear," the scientists wrote.

EPA Office of Pesticide Programs Director Steven Bradbury, who the letter was addressed to, could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting By Carey Gillam;editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)

The French farmer Paul Francois, who says he suffers memory

 loss and stammering after inhaling a Monsanto pesticide. 

(Photograph: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty Images)

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Leaked documents reveal US diplomats actually work for Monsanto

NGO says govt approval on transgenics hurts farmers, environment

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Thu, 10/20/2011

An NGO has criticized the Agriculture Minister's regulation No. 61/2011, which would allow transgenic seeds companies to conduct business, as it could harm greater interests.

“It is obvious that the government is ignorant to the fact that transgenic products can cause potential damage from an environmental, socioeconomic and health perspective,” the Alliance for Prosperous Villages' national coordinator, Tejo Wahyu Jatmiko, told a press conference on Thursday.

He then cited similar projects that were tested around 10 years ago, in the form of a cotton transgenic seed plantation in Bulukumba, South Sulawesi, and a joint project between the ministry and US agriculture giant Monsanto, but both were big failures.

“This policy won’t aid farmers; it will only profit big companies,” he said. 

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Organic v. Monsanto

Organic farmers sue Monsanto

Organic v. Monsanto

UTNE.com, by Danielle Magnuson, 18 July 2011

More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30. Led by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the family farmers are fighting for the right to keep a portion of the world food supply organic—and preemptively protecting themselves from accusations of stealing genetically modified seeds that drift on to their pristine crop fields.

Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local—healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.

But with patented seeds infiltrating the environment so fully, organic itself is at risk. Monsanto’s widely used Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seed has already turned heirloom canola oil into an extinct species. The suing farmers are seeking to prevent similar contamination of organic corn, soybeans, and a host of other crops. What’s more, they’re seeking to prevent Monsanto from accusing them of unlawfully using the very seeds they’re trying to avoid.

“It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement,” says Public Patent Foundation director Dan Ravicher in a Cornucopia Institute article about the farmers’ lawsuit (May 30, 2011), “but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement.”

Even as the megacorporation enjoys soaring stock, the U.S. justice department continues to look into allegations of its fraudulent antitrust practices (The Street, June 29, 2011):

• Monsanto, which has acquired more than 20 of the nation’s biggest seed producers and sellers over the last decade, has long pursued a strict policy with its customers, obligating them to buy its bioengineered seeds every year rather than use them in multiple planting seasons. Farmers who disobey are blacklisted forever.

It’s a wide net Monsanto has cast over the agricultural landscape. As Ravicher points out, “it’s actually in Monsanto’s financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply.” Imagine a world devoid of naturally vigorous traditional crops and controlled by a single business with a appetite for intellectual property. Did anyone else feel a cold wind pass through them? Now imagine a world where thousands of family farmers fight the good fight to continue giving consumers a choice in their food—and win.

Source: Cornucopia Institute, The Street

Image by NatalieMaynor, licensed under Creative Commons.

Related Article:

Organic farmers sue Monsanto

Smile, O Earth

The Jakarta Post, Antara | Sun, 03/06/2011

The plant dance: Participants of a line dance bring plant seeds in an event on
 health and the environment in Surabaya Saturday. As many as 200 plant seeds
were given away in the event, titled "Tersenyumlah Bumiku" (Smile, my earth) (Antara)

VP to inaugurate seed center in Depok

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 12/15/2010

Vice President Boediono will inaugurate a seed center in Tapos, Depok, West Java, on Wednesday to support the one billion tree planting movement.

Boediono will plant several seeds along with Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan and Depok Mayor Nur Mahmudi, tempointeraktif.com reported.

The 1.8-hectare seed center, built by the Forestry Ministry and its partners, will produce 1 to 1.5 million seeds a year.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyo launched the 1 billion tree planting movement last month.

Orchid centers opened in Bogor

Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor | Fri, 08/06/2010 11:29 AM

Two orchid nurseries were opened in Bogor regency Thursday, aimed at helping farmers gain access to quality seeds at an affordable price.

The head of the Indonesian Orchid Association (PAI), Mufidah Jusuf Kalla, who is also the wife of former vice president Jusuf Kalla, said at the inauguration ceremony that the centers were aimed at cultivating quality Dendrobium and Phalaenopsis families of orchids because the two varieties were still imported.

"Dendrobium and Phalaenopsis are the two most wanted species of orchid because of their showy flowers and affordable prices. Therefore we will breed the seeds here so we can distributed them to orchid farmers throughout Indonesia at cheaper prices," Mufidah said.

The centers, which were established by Mufidah and Riantini Sofjan Wanandi as shareholders, serve two different purposes.

The 12-hectare center in Gunung Geulis is for seedlings and the 16-hectare plot in Citeko is for blooming.

The ceremony was attended by former vice president Jusuf Kalla, the Indonesian Employers Association chairman Sofjan Wanandi, Agriculture Ministry Horticulture Director General Ahmad Dimyati and a group of Taiwan orchid stakeholders led by Tainan County magistrate Su Huan Chih.

Mufidah said orchid farmers in Indonesia faced obstacles including seeds that were mostly imported from Taiwan and complex regulations and bureaucracy.

Some orchid farmers have highlighted the difficulties they faced in getting permission to establish of orchid gardens as well as the flexible fees needed to get the permission, leading to high production costs.

Riantini said Indonesian farmers would reap benefits if orchid seeds could be bred domestically with technical assistance from the Taiwan Orchid Association.

"We really expect cooperation with the Taiwan Orchid Association to go smoothly so we can develop a good orchid conservation program," she said.

President launches infrastructure projects

Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 01/19/2010 9:30 AM

President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono on Monday began a work visit to East Java, launching infrastructure projects and a tree-planting campaign.

Yudhoyono arrived at Iswahyudi Air Base in the East Java town of Madiun on Monday morning, after which he and his entourage headed to Widas Reservoir, where he assisted with the sowed 150,000 nila fish seeds and planted 3,500 trembesi trees nearby.

The tree planting is part of the local administration’s plan to plant up to 3.5 million trees around the reservoir.

The President also used the opportunity to hold a dialogue with the local community and to donate 30 tractors, rice seeds, tree seedlings and more than 100 tons of fertilizer to local farmers.

First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, who is among the presidential entourage on the tour, donated 5 tons of baby food.

Also accompanying the President were Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa, Coordinating Public Welfare Minister Agung Laksono, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto, and Yudhoyono’s youngest son, Edhi Baskoro Yudhoyono.

He then headed to Kertonegoro bus terminal in Ngawi where he launched a number of infrastructure projects in the province.

Among these are the planned construction of the 10.4-km Ngawi Ring Road, low-cost apartment towers in Jember and Probolinggo, and a drinking water procurement facility for some East Java areas.

Yudhoyono also witnessed the signing of an MoU between the East Java provincial administration and Brawijaya Military Command, for the construction of 10,000 housing units in 2010.

On the same day, East Java administration officiated its partnership with the Navy, to reconstruct housing for the fishing community in Sumenep, Madura islands, with the Air Force to sow tree seedlings from the air, and the National Police involved in a program to tackle the distribution of drugs.

“Both the central and regional governments will continue carrying out development programs to improve social welfare,” Yudhoyono said as quoted by Antara.

He also asked the public to help maintain public facilities.

“Development is expensive. So please help preserve public facilities and don’t let them get damaged easily,” he said.

Yudhoyono asked regional administrations to allocate more money from their own budgets to local development projects, instead of relying heavily on the central government.

Following the tree-planting activities in Madiun, Yudhoyono warned residents of the important role village heads played in carrying out development programs.

“Village chiefs are grassroots leaders, playing important roles in development. By supporting village heads, residents will also support their subdistrict heads, regents, governors and the President — allowing government programs to run smoothly,” he said.

The President also pledged to promote pro-people development programs and hoped the public would fully support the economic development program to improve their own social welfare.

Farmers showed their appreciation to the President for his visit to their village.

“I am happy with the President’s visit to Saradan village. This visit will encourage us to work harder,” said Sanimin representing Saradan residents.

The President was also scheduled to attend on Tuesday the opening ceremony of the 6th National Work Meeting of the Indonesian Regency Administrations’ Association (Apkasi) in Madiun, before returning to Jakarta the same day.

South Sulawesi to Plant Trees

Tempo Interactive, Thursday, 07 January, 2010 | 20:15 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Makassar:The South Sulawesi government plasn to win a record from the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) by planting trees along 300 km in February.

“The committee has been formed and is running,” South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo told Tempo yesterday.The hope of obtaining a MURI record, he said, was part of an effort to push the population to grow more trees.

”Winning the record is not the goal, but it is a way to attract people’s attention to the environment,” he said.

The committee, said Syahrul, includes 23 regency heads and mayors from all South Sulawesi.

The tree planting location, he said, will be along the provincial road Makassar-Maros-Pangkep-Barru-Parepare until Sidrap. “But other regions still plant trees in their area,” he said.

For this event, the provincial government will provide 3 million seeds, stored in the Provincial Forestry Office and several seed storage places.

Head of the Sulawesi Forestry Office Idris Syukur said that the tree planting would be carried out by choosing seeds from certain types of trees.

He said he hoped that regency and city governments would support the initiatives more seriously so more people could participate. He said he was optimistic that they could reach the target.

INDRA O

White Christmas? It's green Christmas this year: Minister

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 12/22/2009 9:12 PM

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will distribute coconut tree and rain tree seedlings during the national Christmas celebration at the Jakarta Convention Center on Dec. 27 in a bid to encourage Christians to actively protect the environment.

Chairman of the event's organizing committee E.E. Mangindaan said Tuesday environment conservation would be the theme of the celebration.

“Green will be the dominant color of the stage decoration. It will be a green Christmas, not a white Christmas,” Mangindaan, who is the administrative reforms minister, was quoted by Antara.

The celebration comes on the heels of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen last week, in which Yudhoyono was among 110 world leaders in attendance.

First lady Ani Yudhoyono, Vice President Boediono and his wife Herawati Boediono, Cabinet ministers and other state officials are scheduled to join 6,000 people from across the country who will attend the celebration.

Scientists Turn to Native Plants to Save Indonesia's Rivers

The Jakarta Globe, Fidelis E. Satriastanti

Indonesia's rivers are under stress from pollution, garbage and erosion. (Photo: Bagus Indahono, EPA)

With most river basins in the country suffering from severe degradation, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences is trying out a new rehabilitation approach involving replanting species endemic to areas near the water.

Didik Widyatmoko, the head of research at the institute, also known as LIPI, said they had so far planted 5,500 seeds on two locations — a public area and a protected, private one.

More than six hectares of public land in Girimukti, West Java — an upstream area of the Citarum River — have been planted with about 3,100 seeds comprising 33 species, including avocado, rambutan, durian, mango and orange. The project also aims to help provide a source of livelihood for residents in the area, who can harvest and sell the fruit.

Meanwhile, on four hectares of protected land in Bodogol, in West Java’s Gede Pangrango National Park, upstream of the Cisadane River, 2,400 seeds from eight species endemic to the area have been planted to restore the land to its natural habitat.

“Planting is important, but the aim of the project is for research,” Didik said. “On one hand, it is for conservation, on the other it could be used for economic purposes.”

Didik said the Rp 250 million ($26,000) project would be monitored every three months over the next five years to determine the plants’ growth and survival rates.

“We’re predicting that most of the plants will mature after five years and we’re hoping the ecosystem will have been restored by that time,” he said.

Sumarto Suharno, head of the Gede Pangrango National Park, said there were about 7,655 more hectares that needed to be restored in the area.

“So, that’s our biggest challenge now. This land used to be productive, with more than 5,000 families living here,” Sumarto said. “We’ve also been doing land rehabilitation with the help of other stakeholders. We hope the LIPI model can work perfectly.”

Endang Sukara, deputy chairman for life sciences at LIPI, said the researchers hoped to develop a model to help residents restore and rehabilitate their own areas.

“If it succeeds, then we’ll need to bring this to a higher level [of bureaucracy] as a recommendation, because the idea for rehabilitation or restoration should be based on scientific research,” Endang said.

Related Article:

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Indonesia self-sufficient in corn: agriculture ministry

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Agriculture Ministry said Indonesia has succeeded in achieving self-sufficiency in corn as domestic production has reached 90 percent of domestic demand.

"We have become self-sufficient in corn and have also begun exporting the product. However, it does not mean that imports have stopped. But domestic production now meets 90 percent of national demand. In 2008 we also exported corn," the ministry`s director general of food crops, Sutarto Alimoeso, said here on Wednesday.

In 2008 Indonesia imported 170,000 tons of corn and exported 150,000 tons.

He said exports could still increase. Fir this year the production target had been set at around 18 million tons of which one million tons would be exported.

The agriculture ministry was expecting domestic corn production to increase 14 percent this year.

National corn production in 2008 rose more than 22 percent from 16.3 million tons in the previous year.

He said the corn plantation area was increasing while productivity was also rising following the use of superior seeds.

Alimoeso said the government was subsidizing seed prices for rice, corn and bean farmers. Besides seed subsidy the government was also helping farmers to get superior seeds and seeds taken from national reserves.

For 2009, the agriculture ministry had allocated a corn seed subsidy for producing 4,266 tons of corn on an area of 225,534 hectares.

Seed assistance taken from national seed supply for the farmers will reach 5,595 tons for an area of 353,000 hectares. Direct top seed assistance totaling 7,610 tons meanwhile is allocated for an area of 507,333 hectares.

Rp50 Billion for Aero Reforestation

Saturday, 07 March, 2009 | 10:29 WIB 

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The government will continue the reforestation program by sowing seeds from the air. “The government will improve its aero-seeding technique in some provinces of Indonesia, allocating Rp50 – Rp100 billion for the project,” said Forestry Minister M.S Kaban following a meeting with Vice President M. Jusuf Kalla yesterday. 

This method is expected to cover 150.000 to 200.000 hectares of land. The targeted provinces include North Sumatera, West Sumatera, South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi. Around four tons of trembesi and sengon buto tree seeds will be planted. Such reforestation technique was implemented in Nganjuk, East Java, in 2006.

 

Ninin Damayanti