Indonesia: Floods Affect 187,000 hectares Paddy Fields

According to latest data released by Indonesian Agriculture Ministry, floods have affected a total of 187,056 hectares of rice farms in the January-August period this year.

According to the Director for plantation protection of the Agriculture Ministry`s Directorate General of Food Crops, Ati Wasiati, about 66,609 hectares of the affected rice fields failed to yield harvestable rice.

Referring to the impact of the floods on the national production target, the agriculture ministry’s official said that the government had taken into account the drought, flood and other factors such as pest in setting its rice production target and hence the government’s target to increase national rice production by 5 % this year would have to be lowered to 2 %.