Heavy Rain Threatens Indonesia's Rice Harvest, Ministry Warns

The Agriculture Ministry has warned farmers in western Indonesia that higher-than-normal rainfall could put thousands of hectares of rice paddy at risk this rainy season.

Meanwhile, an agricultural analyst doubted the above-average rainfall would cause a shortage in the rice harvest, despite the harvest being delayed a month because of the inclement weather.

Ati Wasiati Hamid, the Ministry of Agriculture’s director of food-crop protection, said on Friday that the heavy rainfall was being caused by the El Nino weather pattern, which caused temperatures in the Indian Ocean to rise.

Areas experiencing higher-than-usual rainfall included Aceh, Lampung, West Sumatra, West Java and some parts of South Kalimantan.

Although rice fields need a lot of water, too much causes the fields to spill over and the crops to die, especially if floods last for longer than two or three days.

The ministry said there were 18,175 hectares of flooded rice paddy nationwide, and about 3,245 hectares of crops have been destroyed.

However, this was still below the five-year average, Ati said. On average, 85,000 hectares of rice fields flood each year, with about 28,000 hectares destroyed.

She said data would not be final until the end of next month — often the period of the heaviest rain s .

The unusually wet weather has resulted in the main harvest being pushed back from April to May, causing an increase in domestic rice prices.

The average price for medium-quality rice on the retail market hit Rp 7,409 (81 cents) per kilogram this week, a 7.4 percent increase since December, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

Juniman, an economist at PT Bank Internasional Indonesia, said higher rice and sugar prices would result in higher inflation.

“A heavy rainy season significantly affects commodity prices, especially for rice,” he said.

However, the government has indicated it might intervene in the market by selling cheap rice through the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

“The government has enough rice stocks in Bulog to conduct market operations to control the price,” Juniman said.

Ati called on farmers to quickly report damaged rice crops to local governments, so the governments could provide them with free seeds to replant their fields.

The government has 30,000 tons of rice seed on hand to disburse to farmers to replant crops.

“We are providing enough free seed to farmers,” Ati said. “So if the farmers whose paddy fields are damaged replant their fields immediately, there should be no impact on national rice production.”

Despite the heavy rainfall, the Agriculture Ministry expects farmers to produce 66.6 million tons of rice this year, an increase of 4.45 percent from 2009.