Jakarta, Jan. 3 - Despite flooding that has inundated close to 70,000 hectares of Indonesian paddy fields, the situation isn't as dire as it was a year ago and the country's rice production won't be severely affected, a senior government official said Thursday.
"Flooding from October 2007 till now has drowned 68,277 hectares of paddy areas, of which 6,676 hectares will experience harvest failure," said Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono.
End-year flooding in 2006, by comparison, resulted in 32,600 hectares of crop failure, said Apriyantono, out of 66,000 hectares of flooded paddy fields.
Although rice production in January will be affected by the floods, Apriyantono said later months are expected to produce a surplus of rice.
"January's production is expected at 1.28 million tons, which would not be sufficient to meet the domestic rice demand of more than 2.5 million tons," said Apriyantono.
However, monthly rice production from February to April 2008 will likely exceed 4 million tons, leaving a surplus, he said.
Apriyantono did not say whether the country would import rice or if current rice stocks would be sufficient to meet January's rice demand.
The area planted to rice rose by 300,000 hectares to 2.08 million hectares in 2007, and Apriyantono expects the increased area to result in a rise in 2008 output to 61 million tons, from 58.1 million tons the previous year.
This month, flooding continues to be a problem in Central Java, while flooding in West Sumatra in December inundated thousands of hectares of paddy fields in Pesisir Selatan, Padang, Padang Pariaman and Agam.
In October, flooding in North Sumatra inundated more than 3,000 hectares of paddy fields in the district of Aceh.
Indonesia is frequently hit by floods during the rainy season, which starts in October and is expected to end by March.