T

he Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has acknowledged its national rice output estimate of 75.5 million tons this year did not factor in the potential impact of El Niño, hinting that the real production figure could be lower due to harvest failure.

BPS head Suryamin said the estimate was based on real production between January and April without taking into account potential crop failures resulting from the long drought in the harvest season between May and December.

The data has previously been used by the Agriculture Ministry to boast of the country'€™s success in rice production.

'€œThe ministry has their own set of data. Our prediction is the basis of their data, but the El Niño impact needs to be included in it,'€ he told the press on Tuesday.

The statistics agency issued its estimate of the year'€™s national rice output to be 75.5 millions tons in May. The figure was a 6.64 percent increase compared with last year.

Suryamin added that the agency'€™s prediction from May to August was based on total cultivated lands from four months earlier, while the estimate from September to December was a prediction based solely on last year'€™s production pattern.

'€œBut the prediction for May to August needs to be recalculated to include the El Niño impact. For the government'€™s policy, there is additional information to be considered such as harvest failure,'€ Suryamin added.

On some occasions, Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman has downplayed the potential impact of El Niño, saying that the prolonged drought would only affect rice production between September and October.

Citing his ministry'€™s survey, Amran said, the drought only affected between 25,000 and 30,000 hectares of rice fields, contrary to widely published estimates that the drought had damaged over 14 million hectares.

He has repeatedly used BPS estimate to assure the public about the potential for rice self sufficiency in the country, claiming that there is no need to import rice.

Unlike Amran, Vice President Jusuf Kalla was among those skeptical about the BPS estimate. Kalla had urged the statistics agency to evaluate its data, claiming the estimate was too high.

'€œIt would be dangerous to use the estimate as the basis for future calculations,'€ he said.

The vice president also mentioned the possibility of rice imports, as the government would not risk people'€™s welfare over '€œpredictions that could be inaccurate'€.

On Tuesday, Amran admitted the ministry'€™s data collection still had room for improvement. '€œTo improve the accuracy of data and the people'€™s confidence in rice production and consumption, I would like to ask all people to fix it together,'€ Amran said in a statement read out by the ministry'€™s director general for food crops Hasil Sembiring.

Hasil said the ministry experienced difficulties in detecting the amount of rice circulating in the market, despite completing a farming land audit in 2011.

According to him, the Agriculture Ministry and BPS had allocatedRp 49 billion (US$3.36 million) this year to improve their data quality.

Senior economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) Bustanul Arifin said that despite the brouhaha on the accuracy of the data, the government still had to provide sufficient stocks of rice.

'€œIf they don'€™t anticipate the stock well, there will be a massive price hike in November and December. The current rice stocks [of 1.7 million] aren'€™t enough, we need 2.7 million, not to mention the government target to provide subsidized rice,'€ Bustanul said.

He said that if it came to the point that the government needed to import rice to meet its subsidized rice target, it must have made a big mistake.

'€œIt means we have made a wrong estimate, planned wrongly and downplayed the impact of El Niño,'€ he said, adding that he was also working with the BPS to improve their methodology.

The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) said that by December, the agency'€™s stock for subsidized rice would reach 62,000 tons from the 1.5 to 2 million tons needed to meet next year'€™s demand, while its current total remaining stocks stood at 1.7 million tons. (fsu)
___________________________________