Still reeling from a long drought, sugarcane farmers in Cirebon, West Java, are now faced with a fertilizer shortage.
""It is feared fertilizer shortages will greatly affect sugarcane productivity,"" said Anwar Asmali, head of the West Java chapter of the Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers Association.
He said fertilizer demand at the beginning of the planting season this month reached about 4.60 million tons, but state-owned fertilizer company PT Petrokimia Gresik, the lone distributor of fertilizer in the province, was only able to provide 1.1 million tons.
However, Anwar said the shortages were not the fault of Petrokimia, instead blaming the problem on the provincial government's fertilizer distribution and allocation policies.
""Petrokimia's production of ZA fertilizer is more than enough to meet demand. But the new system of distribution and allocation enacted by the West Java provincial administration has greatly affected its distribution,"" he said.
He said this new system resulted in surpluses in some locations and shortages in others.
Citing an example, Anwar said in the regency of Karawang there was up to 6,000 tons of surplus ZA fertilizer.
""Most of the ZA fertilizer there was not used because rice farmers in the regency prefer to use urea fertilizer,"" he said, adding that ZA fertilizer was more suitable for sugarcane crops.
Anwar said he had asked West Java Governor .... to review the policy on fertilizer distribution. ""We would expect the review would result in a distribution system more in line with the demands in all regions.""
In addition to being a rice production center, Cirebon is also one of the major sugar producing areas in West Java.
There are about 9,500 hectares of sugarcane plantations in Cirebon developed by up to 16,000 farmers, according to data from the provincial office of the Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers Association.
- JP/Nana Rukmana
