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The government will provide some 5,000 tons of free rice
seeds to farmers next month to help secure this year's production of
the national staple.
The scheme will involve providing 15 kilograms of locally developed
hybrid rice seeds per hectare for a total of 135,000 hectares of
farmland in main rice producing areas, Agriculture Minister Anton
Apriyantono said, with another 3,000 tons of seeds being provided to
support production on land that will be newly planted with rice this
year as part of the government's rice production expansion program.
Up to 1,000 tons of the seeds may have to be imported, the minister
said.
"The next planting season will be in March, so the rice seeds must be
available by then," Anton told reporters Friday after a meeting with
Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
"We expect that the scheme will start within the next 18 days. Some
regions have already asked for help in procuring rice seeds."
Anton said that the rice seeds would be distributed as required at the
regency level, with local administrations being responsible for
procuring the seeds through open tenders. However, the central
government would be responsible for bankrolling the seed purchases.
In addition, the minister said that suppliers may "be directly
appointed in those regions where there is only one seed producer ...
the government will only set the ceiling price for the seeds."
Anton declined to say how much the seed procurement scheme would cost
the central government.
The seed program is the first to be conducted on a national scale. In
the past, similar, but smaller-scale programs, were introduced on a
temporary basis in the wake of disasters and crop failures. The latest
program may be conducted regularly in the future depending on how
things turn out this year, Anton said.
The program should help increase rice production given indications that
the use of poor quality seeds has contributed to lower rice output.
Many major rice-producing countries, like Thailand, have similar seed
incentive programs in place.
The government wants to increase Indonesia's rice production this year
by 2 million tons to 39.2 million to meet the country's rising
consumption, which reached 32 million tons last year.
Indonesia imported 500,000 tons of rice last month, with plans to
import the same amount next month, to secure supplies and stabilize
recently volatile rice prices in the runup to the next harvest.
Torrential monsoon rains have flooded large areas of the country's most
productive farmland. The floods have also disrupted rice distribution.
Meanwhile, an expected drought later in the year could further affect
rice production.
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