Minister of Agriculture, Amran Sulaiman, said 60 percent or the majority of irrigation projects will be developed in Java Island with about 2.3 million hectares of rice fields to support food self-sufficiency projects in 2025 and support the national need for rice from local production.
Amran cited Java Island contributes to about 50 to 60 percent of national rice production. With irrigation project type using Jawadwipa, an existing irrigation network revitalization.
“Initially, rice fields in Java Island can plant paddies twice a year and will become three times a year with this project. The fields that will be revitalized nationally would be about one million hectares from the total project area of about 2 million hectares,” Amran said on Monday, December 30, 2024.
He said further that the majority irrigation project for rice fields outside of Java is related to the optimalization of swamp lands. According to Amran, the project will increase the frequency in paddy field plantations.
In addition, the Indonesian Military (TNI) will help in the irrigation projects through pumping programs to paddy fields up to 500,000 hectares. The pumping is the usage of shallow water or ground water by pumping it to the paddy fields.
Amran is optimistic that the status of the rice self-sufficiency can be achieved by next year, because the rice farmers can now have access to subsidized fertilizers in kiosks owned by State fertilizer company PT Pupuk Indonesia.
“By January 1, 2025, farmers can use subsidized fertilizers as the goods are now available at kiosks. Besides, the administration to buy simple fertilizers is becoming more simple. This is a fairly thorough preparation,” he said.
According to Sudaryono, Vice Minister of Agriculture, the self-sufficiency program is also meant to decrease the dependency of Indonesia’s import in rice.
He noted that there is still a gap of 500 thousand tons between the amount of rice consumption and production in 2023. Although the gap is relatively small, this condition requires Indonesia to import rice.
