"The national rice production target for 2012 is set at 67.82 million tons of dry unhusked rice," Head of the Counseling Center at the Agriculture Ministry Momon Rusmono said here Wednesday.
If the target could be achieved the country would have a rice surplus of 5 million tons at the end of this year, he said.
To achieve the target, the country needed 14.02 million hectares of rice fields, he said.
He said nearly 9 million hectares of the rice fields would be self-financed rice fields owned by farmers.
Therefore, he added agricultural counselors would play a greater role in achieving the target.
Separately, on Wednesday, Central Java Governor Bibit Waluyo said counselors were a key to achieving the success of the agricultural sector.
Of equal importance was the central government`s commitment to supporting any effort to achieve the rice production target of 10 million tons by 2014, he said.
He noted there were other needs which were part of the efforts to modernize agricultural tools.
"We still need more hand-operated tractors to cultivate land," he said.
(SYS/S012/B003)
Editor: Suryanto
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