In 2022, as much as 31.94 million tons of rice were produced in 10.549 million hectares. There was a surplus of 1.74 million tons after deducting consumption (30.2 million tons). However, the production surplus continued to decline. In 2018, rice surplus reached 4.37 million tons, down to 2.38 million tons in 2019, to 2.13 million tons in 2020, and fell again to 1.31 million tons in 2021. On the other hand, the population continues to increase. Demand also grows in line with improved welfare. Climate/weather anomalies, land and water quality degradation and aging farmers posed serious problem to rice production.
Furthermore, at least in the last five years, there has been a tendency among farmers to refuse to plant rice. First, the rice planting area has decreased from 11.378 million ha in 2018 to 10.549 million ha in 2022. In five years, the harvested area has decreased by 829,000 ha. Second, the number of fields planted with other crops other than rice has continued to increase from 14,994 ha in 2019 to 18,311 ha in 2021. Without many realizing it, various food crops are currently competing in the paddy fields measuring 7.4 million hectares. The most important of course are rice, corn, soybeans, and sugarcane. When the planting area of a certain crop increases, the others’ area will decrease. Dilemmatic. This is what is happening to Indonesian agriculture these days.
Read: THE POLITICS OF RICE – A collusion that impact Indonesia’s economy
Three characters are known among Javanese farmers (Sapuan, 2021): ngalah, ngalih and ngamuk. If there is a policy that is not in accordance with their wishes, they will ngalah (give it up). They will not protest. If this condition continues, farmers can ngalih (switch) by planting other commodities they feel are more profitable. Finally, ngamuk does not mean that the farmer is losing his temper with the government or other people, but that he will plant rice or other crops to meet his own needs. If this happens, chaos!