MATARAM - The present extreme weather conditions have the potential of causing a drop in food production and all the negative consequences of such a development, a local official said.
"Extreme weather conditions can cause an increase in pests and plant diseases. Then there may be harvest failures and a decline in food production," Husnannindity Nurdin, head of West Nusatenggara’s Food Resilience Agency (BKP), said here Saturday.
Therefore, he said, the BKP, together with the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), was providing local farmers with information on the weather one month ahead.
The information from BMKG would be disseminated by scouts from BKP to enable farmers to adjust the types of crops they would plant with the expected weather conditions, he said. Nurdin said farmers would be inclined to plant rice during high precipitation but this could make negative consequences such pests and diseases, destruction of their crops by floods.
"They can’t change their planting pattern during high rainfall. Most of them will plant rice. They are unlikely to grow corn or nuts since it may result in harvest failure" he said.
Another effort to avoid a food crises, he added, was utilizing one million hectares of dry land in NTB optimally, by planting tubers, corns and nuts crops. The condition was possibly to be non-rice production area because of the rainfall on the dry land was not likely on the soggy one.
"Farming on the dry area could change their habit of consumption, from rice to non-rice. They are potentially to be the dry land farmers, due to the area with the limited water and was not always be able to be planted with rice," he said in the meeting.
Nurdin also said the BKP would allocate fund to several farmer groups through independent food village program, enterpreneurships for rural economic and barns development.
"The fund will be taken from State and regional Budget," he said.
source : kompas.com
