Minister gets eyes opened in China

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The agriculture minister has returned from China repeating the old adage: Give a man a bowl of rice and he will eat today, teach him to grow rice properly and he will feed generations.

Minister Anton Apriyantono said Tuesday that China's two-prong technology and policy approach to maintaining domestic rice stocks had inspired him to intensively expand information sharing between researchers, seed producers and farmers in Indonesia, and to introduce new policies to ensure a balance between domestic rice stocks and demand in order to stabilize prices.

"When we asked whether they could help provide us with rice should something happen in Indonesia, they said they could do a little for us. They only produce just the amount of rice they need. And in doing so, they have achieved enough rice stocks of 10 years," said Anton.

Instead of promising rice assistance, Chinese officials accompanied Anton on a tour of rice production centers in various parts of that country between June 6 and 11.

During the trip, Anton observed China's hybrid-seed development program. He said he was really impressed that China could now produce between 12 and 13 tons of rice per hectare.

"The government of China encourages hybrid-seed development with research and financial support. It is interesting to see that a research agency there can disseminate its research findings directly to farmers and world agencies, thus allowing China to respond quickly to ever-changing needs," said Anton.

Anton said that his ministry would enhance domestic research into hybrid seeds. He acknowledged that in Indonesia there were not enough links between researchers and the end-users of their research findings.

"You may be surprised to hear that some domestic seed companies have been exporting seeds to various countries, while our farmers have been importing the same kinds of seeds. We are strangers to each other," said Anton.

Anton said that Prima Tani, an information-sharing program intended to familiarize farmers with the various kinds of seeds produced domestically, would be expanded.

Thus far, the government has introduced the program into 200 rural districts in order to establish better communications and interaction between researchers, seed producers and farmers.

"Next year, we will expand this program to ten thousand rural districts so that technological innovations can reach the farmers through facilitators," he said.

Anton explained that the Agriculture Ministry also planned to encourage the private sector to conduct more research into rice seeds.

He said that the ministry would issue a special permit for the importation of seeds into Indonesia for research purposes. "After the two-year period, they should be able to produce their own seeds -- ones that are suitable for domestic use. This is meant to build up our own resources, so that we are not dependent on imports," he said.

Anton said that he expected this application of a technology-policy approach would enable Indonesia to improve its rice research and production record.

Achmad Suryana, the director of the Agriculture Ministry's Research Agency, said that in the past few decades Indonesia had introduced 31 varieties of hybrid seed, with six of them launched by the Sukamandi research and development agency.

Four of those six varieties had been developed in collaboration with PT Dupont and PT Sumber Alam Sutera, which also works together with the Chinese government, and two other domestic companies. The other two varieties were developed in cooperation with the Central Java administration.