"Food stocks especially rice must be able to meet national demand because 90 percent of the population still depends on it."Padang, West Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Indonesia will stop rice imports if it is able to increase production by seven percent in 2011, chief of the National Logistics Agency, Sutarto Alimoeso said.
"We believe if rice production could be increased by seven percent from last year, we can stop imports," he said at the West Sumatra governor`s office here on Wednesday.
Sutarto was in the region to speak at the coordination meeting of the West Sumatra province, cities and districts boards of food resilience.
He said with rice production in 2010 at around 40 million tons national stocks would be sufficient if the seven percent rise target was met.
He said the optimism was also boosted by population growth which tended to drop a little compared to the previous year.
"Food stocks especially rice must be able to meet national demand because 90 percent of the population still depends on it," he said.
Regarding the people of Maluku and Papua who used to consume sago as their staple food he said they certainly could not return to the commodity as its staple now after they used to eat rice.
He said overcoming the obstacle to meet the seven percent growth target would not be easy, however, as it would also be determined by land availability and weather conditions. He said some land had now been converted for other use while land is now getting less fertile.
Sutarto said in view of that he said he had made a contract with various parties for the supply of around 916,000 tons in 2011 and until the end of the first quarter around 600,000 tons had been realized.
He said the agency had also bought rice from farmers "at a price according to quality and producing regions", adding farmer groups could directly sell their produce to the agency for certainly a better price.
He said not a lot of farmers had so far sold directly to the agency because of their ignorance about the mechanism and also because of their dependence on collectors for loans.
The chief of food resilience of West Sumatra, Syahrial Syam, said on the occasion he would mobilize 71 Community Food Distribution Institutions (LDPM) to sell their production directly to the agency.
The LDPM managed by farmer groups has so far bought rice from farmers but they never sold the rice to the agency. Syahrial said the cooperation would certainly shorten distribution lines and farmers could enjoy a margin.
(Uu.H-YH/A014)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
