Indonesia

General information

• GNI per capita PPP$, 2000: 2,830
• Internal renewable water resources: 2,530 km³
• Main food consumed: rice, oil and fat, nuts, roots and tubers, maize
• Rice consumption, 1999: 154 kg milled rice per person per year

The Indonesian archipelago extends from 6° N to 11° S latitude and from 95° to 141° E longitude or about 2,000 km from north to south and 5,000 km from east to west. There are more than 13,000 islands, including five of the world's largest: Sumatra, Kalimantan (Indonesian part of Borneo), Irian Jaya (western New Guinea), Sulawesi (Celebes), and Java.

Indonesia lies within AEZ 3, characterized as the warm humid tropics. Most of Indonesia has a moist tropical climate, with abundant rain and high temperatures. Annual rainfall ranges from 1,000 to more than 5,000 mm per year, with more than 90% of the country receiving average rainfall of more than 1,500 mm. December through March are the months with the highest rainfall.

Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with about 215 million people as of 2001. Because of rapid economic growth and an active family planning program, population growth has declined from 2.4% per annum during the late 1960s and early 1970s to 1.5% recently, and the United Nations forecasts this rate to decline to less than 1% by 2015. The mean population density is 111/km², but, on Java, where nearly 60% of the people reside, the population density is approximately 980/km². The share of the population in urban areas has grown to 40%, with the remainder in rural areas. About half of the economically active population is in agriculture, although many of these people derive a substantial share of their income from non-agricultural activities. The incidence of malnutrition among children age 2-5 (as measured by weight for age) is estimated at 34%.

Recent developments in the rice sector
The agricultural sector (including forestry and fisheries) contributed approximately one-sixth of GDP in 2000, with rice production responsible for about one-fourth of this contribution. Rice constitutes nearly 40% of total crop area harvested and is the country's staple food, accounting for slightly more than half of caloric intake and nearly half of protein intake. Rice accounts for 20% of total expenditures for the poorest quarter of the urban population. Even in rural areas, many poor people are net consumers of rice, since 45% of rural households on Java do not own any land and another 20% own less than 0.25 ha. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Indonesia was the world's largest rice importer, often importing one-fourth of total supplies on the world market. From 1967 to 1986, however, total rice production tripled, probably the most extraordinary growth rate of staple food production in human history, and self-sufficiency was achieved by the mid-1980s. This rapid production growth was achieved through the adoption of modern high-yielding varieties and fertilizers by farmers. Adoption of these varieties was greatly facilitated by government programs such as fertilizer subsidies and rice price stabilization around the long-term trend of world prices. Large investments in rural infrastructure such as irrigation, roads, and schools also played a critical role.

While per hectare yields more than doubled from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the national average yield today is no greater than it was ten years ago. This stagnation has been the primary factor behind Indonesia's return as the largest importer on the world market in the second half of the 1990s. Despite continued urbanization, rice harvested area increased steadily during the past decade, from about 10.5 million hectares in 1990 to nearly 12 million ha in 1999.

Rice policy has changed substantially in the aftermath of the Southeast Asian financial crisis that led to the resignation of President Suharto in 1998. A substantial increase in rice prices in late 1998 led to significant increases in poverty, and this precipitated shifts in policy. While the national logistics agency Bulog formerly had monopoly control over all rice import and export decisions, adoption of an International Monetary und stabilization program led to the entry of rivate-sector raders, who are currently allowed o make import decisions subject only to a tariff. ulog's successful defense of farm-gate floor rices for nearly 30 years also ended because of political and institutional constraints. Recently, all subsidies on fertilizer were eliminated.

Rice environments
As of the mid-1990s, 54% of the rice area in Indonesia was irrigated, with 35% rainfed lowland, and 11% upland. Nearly all of the irrigated area can be planted to two or more crops of rice per year, and much of the rainfed area has favorable growing conditions. Most irrigated lowland rice areas are located in floodplains. However, they can also be found on mountain-sides wherever there is water. Rainfed lands are on both floodplains and undulating landscapes. Uplands are mostly on undulating landscapes. Current estimates are that about 80% of rice land is planted to modern varieties. On Java, most rice is transplanted. Labor use in rice production is relatively high, typically exceeding 200 person-days per hectare per crop.

Production constraints
In irrigated and favorable rainfed lowlands, especially on Java, the relatively heavy application of nitrogenous fertilizers makes nutrient imbalance a serious problem. Indonesia is also particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. In years when surface water temperatures rise substantially in the western Pacific Ocean, signaling an El Niño event, rice production suffers a serious shortfall, with most of the effects coming from a reduction in rice area planted (as opposed to lower yields). The reduction in area occurs even in systems that are usually irrigated, as lower rainfall leads to a reduced availability of
irrigation water.

In upland rice areas, erosion is a serious problem because on steep slopes the fields are neither bunded nor terraced. This can cause serious sedimentation problems in lowland irrigation systems. Alley cropping as well as terracing are being introduced in some areas, but these cultural practices have not yet been widely adopted by farmers. Upland soils are also more weathered and leached, leading to problems of Al toxicity and P nutrient deficiencies that combine to reduce yields. Soil acidity is serious in tidal swamps because of acid-sulfate soils. That is accompanied by Fe toxicity as well as some deficiencies of P and micronutrients.

Production opportunities
Indonesia has developed a cadre of researchers capable of undertaking rice research and collaborating with colleagues in other countries. The Research Institute for Rice (RIR), located in Sukamandi, West Java, is the main institute conducting biophysical rice research. Some trials and assessments on rice are also conducted by the regional institute of the Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology (AIAT) at the provincial level. The Center for Agro-Socio-Economic Research (CASER), located in Bogor, has a long tradition of conducting socioeconomic research on rice and the agricultural sector more broadly. Future research efforts will need to focus on
several areas:

• achieving higher and sustainable rice yields through integrated crop and resource management
• breeding of varieties with higher yield (Indonesia is a member of the hybrid rice network) and actively testing and developing the new plant type
• further breeding of varieties resistant to pests and diseases using marker-aided selection and other techniques
• development of varieties tolerant of drought and soil toxicities
• development of varieties and other strategies to stabilize yields
• development of improved nutrient management strategies
• crop diversification

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