T

he skyrocketing price of sugarcane has driven farmers in Malang regency to switch to planting the cash crop in their rice fields en masse, raising concerns of a possible shortage of rice in the region.

Purwanto, head of the Malang Agriculture and Horticulture Office, said the conversion of rice fields had reached an alarming level and could harm rice production.

"In less than two years the area of sugarcane plantations in the regency has increased by 5,000 hectares," Purwanto said Monday.

He said in 2007 Malang had 35,000 hectares of sugarcane plantations, which produced nearly 3 million tons of sugar. By the end of 2008, the area had increased to 38,000 hectares, and 2,000 more hectares have been converted as of August this year.

"We have to be cautious. Otherwise we will have less and less rice plantations because more and more farmers will switch to planting sugarcane in the pursuit of higher incomes," Purwanto said.

Purwanto was not exaggerating. The Malang Regional Administration aimed to have 62,169 hectares of rice plantations in the 2008/09 planting season.

However, so far only 61,787 hectares have been planted. The problem is worsened by the fact that the area of established rice fields decreased from 60,000 to 45,686 hectares this year.

He said it would be against the law for his office to stop farmers from converting their land.

"We cannot just do so, especially when the price of sugarcane sugar in the market is up to Rp 10,000 *US$1* per kilogram," he said.

Purwanto however said that anticipatory measures must be made to prevent a drastic drop in rice production in the regency.

He said his office would coordinate with subdistrict heads to help urge farmers not to be too hasty in changing staple food crops to cash crops.

"This is important for the area as it makes plant diseases or pest attacks easier to handle."

But Malang has been enjoying a surplus in rice. The January-July harvest yielded 304,546 tons of un-husked rice, the equivalent of 191,179 tons of husked rice.

"This means that we have a rice surplus of 61,413 tons because the need for rice for the January to August period was 129,766 tons," Purwanto said.

However, he added, the increasing areas of sugarcane plantations, which are now found in all but three of the regency's 33 districts, must also be put on alert.

Head of the Kalipare district administration's Village Unit Cooperatives (KUD) said there were proposals to increase the area of sugarcane plantations in the district by seven hectares in 2008 and by 24 hectares as of August this year.

He said that when the price of sugar dropped as imports of refined sugar flooded the market, sugarcane farmers converted their sugarcane fields into either corn or rice fields. But now sugar prices are up again, they have gone back to sugarcane.

A hectare of sugarcane plantation can normally produce about 70,000 kilograms of sugarcane, every 100 kilograms of which can yield some 7.3 kilograms of sugar.

East Java aims to produce 1.5 million tons of sugar this year, an increase of 300,000 tons in 2008. If this goal is realized, the province would contribute 46 percent of the national need for sugar.

With two sugar factories producing a total of 20,000 tons of sugar every day, Malang regency is one of the province's main centers of production for sugarcane.