A farmer crops of rice paddy. (ANTARA/Saiful Bahri)
"(We) are optimistic the production of dried unhulled rice could reach 64 million tons, up 5.83 percent from 2008," the director general of food crops, Sutarto Alimoeso, said after participating in a fit and proper test as a candidate for president director of Perum Bulog.
Sutarto said the hike in the rice production had been driven by climate conditions which were very supportive while drought and floods had been less so that they did not disrupt production.
The distribution of top seeds have also helped contribute to the rise of rice production as well as the presence of the Integrated Crops Management Field Schooling.
"The supply of subsidized fertilizers is sufficient and scarcity of fertilizers has also never happened," he said.
Regarding soybean production he predicted it would increase to above one million tons this year.
"The target of above one million tons is extraordinary. It is up by around 24 percent from last year`s production which was recorded at 700,000 tons," he said.
Based on third forecast figures production has now reached 966,000 tons.
He said soybean production had been boosted to reduce dependencey on imports.
He said with average soybean production increased above 20 percent it was expected in 2014 Indonesia would be self-sufficient in the commodity.
"In 2014 production of soybean could reach 2.5 million tons a year," he said.(*)
