Farmers face monkey invasion, crop failure

Suherdjoko ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Semarang   |  Tue, 08/11/2009 12:34 PM  |  The Archipelago

Amid the current drought conditions, hundreds of long-tailed monkeys from the Gunungpati forest areas in Semarang, Central Java, have begun foraging for food in nearby farmland and residential areas.

Residents have complained of a "monkey invasion," but biologists say the situation is the result of depleted sources of food in the monkey's natural habitat.

The areas affected include Nongkosawit, Pongangan and Sekaran subdistricts.

"The monkeys are brave enough to enter people's settlements in search of young plants and leaves," said Widodo, a resident of Nongkosawit.

The starving monkeys, he said, have destroyed up to as 1.5 hectares of young sengon trees in Pongangan.

Until now, the population has survived in forested areas in Sedayu, Panjangan, Setigit and the Kreo cave. Each dry season, the monkey's usually descend from the mountain in search of young green plants, Widodo said.

Meanwhile, around 1,600 ha of rice crops in Rembang regency, Semarang, will likely face harvest failure because of the drought, Central Java Agriculture Office infrastructure head Nuswantoro Setyadi said.

"Farmers are determined to grow rice during the drought. They speculated that if they grew rice they could yield more profit, but if the crops failed, they realized the consequences," Nuswantoro told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The areas hit hardest by harvest failures are rain-dependent farmlands. "They should have grown secondary crops," he said.

At present, Rembang is the regency in Central Java affected most severely by the drought.

Central Java Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency head Muhammad Chaeran said in Semarang that this year's dry season in Java would last until November.

"The current drought is regarded as normal, not too long and not too short. Rainfalls in Central Java have dropped from early May until early June. The dry season throughout the province commenced in June," said Chaeran.

The droughts would most affect areas in the eastern part of the north coast, such as Blora, Rembang, Pati, Kudus and Grobogan.

Central Java Governor Bibit Waluyo urged farmers to conserve water from reservoirs to irrigate fields with secondary crops during the drought.

"Don't force yourself to grow rice, because water shortages could lead to harvest failures. The available water must be prioritized for irrigating secondary crops, not rice. It would be better if farmers drilled their own artesian wells," Bibit said.

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