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Indonesia’s love of rice is secured
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Prime commodity: Bags of rice are stored at a warehouse at Pasar Minggu Market, South Jakarta, on May 16. (Antara/Sigid Kurniawan)
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meal without rice is no meal. The Japanese proverb applies in Indonesia too, as the majority of the population try to include rice in almost every meal, a demand that the government confidently claims it can meet using next year’s state budget.
The Agriculture Ministry proposed on Monday its 2018 budget to the House of Representatives. According to its proposal, the ministry will need Rp 22.65 trillion (US$1.7 billion) to finance its programs next year, compared to Rp 22.1 trillion in 2017.
Despite the flat figure, it said the budget was sufficient to maintain a “zero rice import” policy, thanks to tight production control, improved subsidy distribution and enhanced data collection.
“It is simple to maintain [no rice imports]. We only need to make sure that we plant no less than 1 million hectares of paddy fields every month,” Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman told reporters after meeting with the House’s Commission IV, which oversees agricultural affairs.
The importance of rice in Indonesians’ diets is shown by data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), which reveal that the average Indonesian consumed 84.8 kilograms of rice in 2015.
The government has claimed that the 11.7 percent increase in paddy production to 79.1 million tons in 2016 from 2014 meant that the ministry issued no import recommendations in 2016.
It hopes to produce 78.13 million tons of paddy this year and then jack that figure up to 80.08 million tons in 2018 by increasing the annual planting frequency — represented by the “paddy planting index” — on the existing 8.1 million ha of rice fields.
