National Rice Production Predicted to Surge in August-October 2024

The Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) projects that national rice production from January to October 2024 will reach 26.93 million tons. This figure is derived from a sample area frame survey (KSA) conducted by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

During this period, the highest estimated rice production will occur in September, reaching 2.87 million tons.

“September's production is the highest in 5, even 10 years, during the dry season,” said Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman in a working meeting with Commission IV of the DPR (House of Representatives) on Monday (August 26, 2024).

This is a good sign because, according to Amran, Indonesia experienced a drought due to El Niño a few months ago. The projected production for August-October this year is claimed to be higher than the previous months.

Rice production in June-July 2024 was only around 2 million tons. Meanwhile, during the main harvest in May, rice production reached 3.6 million tons.

Amran believes the anomalous increase in production towards the end of the year is due to the revision of the irrigation pump budget.

“This is the result of budget refocusing; we focused on pumps, land optimization (opla), and superior seeds that we provided free of charge to farmers who want to plant twice a year,” he said.

Specifically, Kementan had distributed 25,000 pump units by July 2024. Furthermore, 9.5 million tons of subsidized fertilizer were distributed, effectively distributed in June-August 2024.

“Therefore, the distribution of subsidized fertilizer effectively influenced the volume of production until October 2024,” said Amran.