Panca Nugraha, Mataram – Farmers in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) are still living in poverty despite 15 years of surplus rice production in the province, an official says.
NTB Statistics Bureau (BPS) head Mariadi Mardian said the province's farmer exchange value (NTP) index in August was around 96.24, a 0.14 percent decrease compared to July. The minimum NTP for wealthy farmers is 100.
"This means our farmers are not yet wealthy. Their production and living costs are still far above their income," Mariadi said Thursday.
He added that the index was based on the ratio between farmers' operational costs – the expenditure index – and the value of their agricultural products, the income index.
"The harvest is indeed good. Yet, as the cost of staple foods in the villages are also high because of inflation, the NTP index is also affected."
Mariadi said that although the NTP index fluctuated, it was overall stable. The average NTP index never reached 100.
Data at the national level shows that only 13 out of the archipelago's 33 provinces had an NTP index above 100 in July and August.
These provinces include North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Bengkulu, Lampung, Riau Islands, Yogyakarta, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua.
The NTB province was ranked 31st, the third lowest after Jambi whose NTP index was 95.8, and Bangka Belitung whose NTP index was 93.99.
Ironically, NTB has been one of Indonesia's rice production centers for the last three years, suppling rice to Bali and NTT.
Mariadi therefore suggested that to help increase the NTP index, the provincial administration needed to find a way to control farmers' production costs, increase the prices of agricultural products, and control the prices of staple foods in villages.
Head of the provincial agriculture, crops and horticulture agency, Pending Dadih Permana, said that during the second dry season, the province had produced 1.8 million tons of dry unhusked rice.
"This exceeded our target of 1.78 million tons this year," he said, adding that the rice needs of its 4.2 million population was between 600,000 and 700,000 tons.
He expressed optimism that rice production would keep increasing until the end of the year. Last year, the province produced 1.7 million tons of dry unhusked rice.
Pending also expressed doubts over the BPS' survey and NTP index data, saying it might have only been carried out in a number of farming areas.
"There are indeed small parts of the regions that experience annual drought but the rest have abundant water resources. If it's the dry regions that are taken as samples, then the result of the survey will be erroneous," he said.
"If it (the survey) represented the province as a whole, the result would have been different."
He added that both the provincial administration and the central government had done a lot to help control farmers' production costs through subsidies and free seedling distribution.