We hope that we will be able to speed up the harvest because we will be facing a longer dry season.
Ngawi, East Java (ANTARA) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has asked Indonesian farmers to accelerate the rice planting period after the main harvest season to maximize the use of rainwater and to avoid drought.

"Because the rainwater is still available after the main harvest season, I ask all farmers to maximize it," he said during the harvest season in Kartoharjo village, Ngawi district, East Java province, on Saturday.

He urged farmers to utilize the remaining rainwater to irrigate rice fields and rice plants in order to augment national food stocks and security since the upcoming dry season is predicted to be longer than usual.

In addition, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo said that he was ready to follow President Widodo’s directive to accelerate rice planting after the main harvest season by coordinating with regional heads.

While the total area under rice fields is 7.4 million hectares, the President is targeting that farmers accelerate planting on an area of up to 10 million hectares.

"We have approximately 7.4 million hectares of rice fields but the planting area can reach more than that. For land that has been harvested, do not wait too long to plant it again. All regional heads will coordinate to realize this," Limpo said while accompanying the President.

According to him, the second national rice harvest, which President Widodo joined in Ngawi symbolically, marked a joint harvest of 1 million hectares, although the data in February showed that there were 1.20 million hectares that were harvested with an estimated production of 6.39 million tons of dry milled rice grain (GKG), which is equivalent to 3.68 million tons of rice.

In March, 9.14 million tons of GKG, equivalent to 5.26 million tons of rice, is expected to be harvested from 1.70 million hectares of farms. In April, 6.09 million tons of GKG, or the equivalent of 3.51 million tons, of rice is expected to be harvested from 1.15 million hectares.

"We hope that we will be able to speed up the harvest because we will be facing a longer dry season. Even though there might be a chance of rain during the dry season, we must still anticipate this weather anomaly," he said.

In addition, he noted that rice production in Ngawi district was higher with an average yield of 8 tons per hectare compared to only 6 tons per hectare in other regions. Farmers in Ngawi do not use irrigation to water rice fields, but water pumps instead.

"Therefore, President Jokowi asked to increase the number of dryers, power threshers, and combine harvesting machines amounting to 1 thousand units through the People's Business Credit (KUR) budget to help our farmers," Limpo said.

According to data, the harvested area in Ngawi district on March 2023 reached 32.676 hectares, with the current price of manually harvested dry rice grain (GKP) pegged at Rp4,700 to Rp4,900 per kilogram, he disclosed.

Meanwhile, the price for rice harvested using a combine harvester machine can reach Rp5,000 to Rp5,500 per kilogram, he disclosed.

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Translator: Louis Rika S, Resinta S
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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