JAKARTA: Indonesia’s rice output in the harvest period from January to April is expected to drop 17.52% from last year, hit by dry weather that brought a decline of 1.39%, data from the statistics bureau showed on Friday.

The Southeast Asian nation produced 31.10 million metric tons of the grain in 2023, Statistics Indonesia said, estimating output from January to April at 10.71 million, down from 12.98 million in the year-earlier period.

The El Nino weather phenomenon discouraged planting by some farmers in the period from October to December, the bureau said, with rice-producing areas expected to shrink about 16% over January to April.

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“The larger size of uncultivated land will impact harvest size in early 2024,” a senior bureau official, M. Habibullah, told reporters. Expectations of lower production have driven up retail prices of the grain, bolstering the rate of the southeast Asian nation’s February headline inflation beyond the forecast.

The statistics body’s retail rice price index, covering all grades of the grain, stood at 15,157 rupiah ($0.9663) per kg in February, the highest it has ever recorded.

Indonesia is boosting imports of the staple food consumed by most of its 270 million people to control prices amid anticipation of higher demand ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, set to begin in the second week of March.

The government is adding 1.6 million tons of rice import allocation this year, in addition to 2 million tons already approved, in the effort to rein in prices.

The output of corn kernels with 14% water content is estimated at 5.34 million tons in January-April, up 10.28% on the year.

Corn kernel output in 2023 dropped 10.61% to 14.77 million tons.