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he government vows to take necessary measures, including improving distribution of seeds and fertilizers as well as revitalizing irrigation systems, to boost rice production next year in a bid to secure sufficient supply for the whole year, a senior official says.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Rusman Heriawan said on Sunday that his ministry would distribute seeds and fertilizers at the right time before and during the first cultivation season, which falls between January and April, and whose harvest would account for around half of the full-year total rice output.

“We expect to distribute seeds in December or January at the latest, and fertilizers in around February,” he told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recently forecast that the country’s rice production would decline by 1.63 percent, or around 1.08 million tons down from 65.39 million tons this year due to shrinking productivity and reduced farmland areas.

Rusman, a former BPS chief before he was named deputy minister, said that learning from the experience this year, during which a long dry season and various crop diseases had cut rice production, the government would anticipate such problems by offering farmers seeds that were resilient to climate anomalies as well as pests.

He said his ministry would also cooperate with the Public Works Ministry to repair old primary irrigation channels dependent mainly on rivers and dams, and the Forestry Ministry, which would provide 1 million hectares of land, to expand cultivation area.

Indonesia, the world’s third-largest rice consumer with a population of 240 million, annually consumes 139 kilograms per capita and the rice price was one of the biggest contributors to inflation in October.

Prices of medium rice have risen by 6.54 percent from a year earlier to Rp 7,951 (88 US cents) per kilogram in October, according to BPS data.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, was rice self-sufficient in 2008 and 2009, but began to import the country’s main staple food last year after stockpiles fell and harvests failed to achieve their targets.

State logistics company Bulog has committed to import 1.6 million tons of rice this year to build stockpiles with the latest delivery expected in February next year.

Out of the 1.6 million tons, 1.2 million tons is from Vietnam and 400,000 tons is from the world’s largest rice producer — Thailand. However, Thailand recently broke the deal, and Indonesia is seeking an alternative for imports, including Cambodia, India and Pakistan.

Trade Ministry foreign trade chief Deddy Saleh said last Friday that India had recently offered rice totaling 500,000 tons under a business-to-business arrangement.

Economists have demanded that the government strengthen domestic supply by boosting production in order to stabilize people’s purchasing power in the domestic consumption-driven economy, with imports left as the last alternative amid volatile international prices.

— JP/Linda Yulisman