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With a further decline in world rice production, Indonesia, a
major rice importer, could suffer food shortages in the coming years if
it fails to boost rice production, an agricultural expert warns.
International Rice Research Institute development director Duncan
Graham said Wednesday that high rice prices on the world market would
also pose big problems for Indonesia in its efforts to secure rice
supplies.
"The international rice price has doubled in the last two years. What
if this continues and it doubles again?" he said to The Jakarta Post on
the sidelines of the World Rice Conference.
The international rice price, Duncan said, had already increased from
about US$240 a ton to more than $300 a ton. "Today (experts) at this
conference are now talking about the price going up to $1,000 a ton."
He said the international rice price was expected to increase because
India, the world's largest rice producer and consumer after China,
might need to import 5 million tons of rice over the next 12 months.
"This is a large amount of rice. If India buys that rice on the
international market, what does that mean for Indonesia and the
Philippines as rice importers? There are two things: one, it will push
up the price even higher, making it more expensive for Indonesia, and
two, there will not be enough rice to buy because India has taken it
all," he explained.
In his address at the opening of the conference, the head of the State
Logistics Agency, Mustafa Abubakar, said that Indonesia still needed to
import rice to meet growing rice needs at home.
While Indonesia would stick to its import policy, increasing rice
production would remain the top priority, he said.
Indonesia's rice imports fell from 6 million tons in 1998 to less than
1 million in 2004. The government increased the figure to more than 1
million tons this year due to harvest delays in some areas.
The staple food is very important to the country's economy and
household food security, especially among the poor, who allocate about
30 percent of their total expenditure to rice.
Increases in farming costs and low rice prices have caused many farmers
to turn to other crops in the hope of improving their incomes. This has
become the main obstacle to increasing rice production.
Graham said that agriculture was now facing serious challenges from the
effects of climate change resulting from global warming, including more
floods and droughts than ever before, while at the same time many
members of the younger generation around the world were abandoning
agriculture for economic reasons.
"The big problem is that agriculture and farming have become less sexy.
Nobody cares about them. Everybody has forgotten agriculture. Everybody
is more excited about the IT industry, tourism and everything else. We
are paying the price for forgetting about agriculture and food
production," Graham said.
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