Indonesia is unlikely to export more than 300,000 tonnes of rice next year, about a tenth of this year's surplus, in order to build up stocks in case of bad weather conditions, an agriculture ministry official said on Wednesday. The rice market has been eyeing the intentions of Indonesia, the world's third-biggest rice consumer, over exports next year after a bumper harvest in the last few years.
Indonesia could post a surplus of more than 3 million tonnes of rice this year compared to about 1.6-2 million tonnes in 2008, Ati Wasiati Hamid, director of food crop protection at the ministry said in an interview. "We are so vulnerable to climate change. We cannot let our stocks fall because as a result we could suddenly need imports when prices rise," Hamid said.
The availability of rice had helped ensure the country staged peaceful elections, said the official. Indonesia has previously seen social unrest when prices of basic necessities like rice and fuel have jumped. "We managed to hold peaceful general elections this year partly because we had sufficient rice supply. Otherwise, people would have made a noise asking for rice," she said.
Indonesia's reluctance to export could further tighten the global rice market next year, particularly since India, the world's second-largest consumer, could flip over to become a net importer. Wasiati said current weather conditions still favoured Indonesia posting a rice surplus for a third straight year in 2010 given that new crop plantings had been running smoothly.
"We have enough rainfall. As usual we have planted around 23 percent of our fields in October," she said. About 50 percent of areas would be planted in November and the rest in December. Indonesia can plant rice three times in a year. The agriculture ministry had not finalised its rice output target for next year, awaiting actual figures for 2009 but it would be above 65 million tonnes of unmilled rice.
Indonesia statistics bureau said Monday it has revised up its forecast for rice production in 2009 by 2 percent from an earlier estimate. In its third of three annual crop estimates, the state statistics agency forecast Indonesia may produce 63.84 million tonnes of unmilled grain in 2009, up from a forecast of 62.56 million tonnes in July, boosted by bigger harvested areas and higher productivity.
It will be for the second year running that Indonesian rice output has increase more than 5 percent. The main threats to rice production could come from pest and disease as well as drought and floods. Indonesia could suffer from a return of the El Nino drier weather phenomenon but Australia's weather bureau said on Tuesday that there is no need at this stage to fear that it will bring drought conditions to the region.