Bali buys 10,000 tons of rice

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by The Jakarta Post

Bali buys 10,000 tons of rice

Denpasar: To secure the island’s rice stocks for the coming month, the Bali office of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) has procured 10,000 tons of rice imported from Vietnam and India.

Andi Abdul Rahman, head of Bulog’s service division, said that the agency now had 14,900 tons of rice in its warehouses.

“Bulog will buy a further 5,000 tons of rice from East Java in the near future,” Rahman said.

“Rice imports are an inevitable policy taken by Bulog to secure the island’s food supplies since local harvest yields have been decreasing over the last few years,” he added.

This has been caused by a substantial decrease in productive farms in Bali as they make way for various development programs.

In 1999, Bali had 86,071 hectares of rice fields. In 2011, this had reduced to only 39,022 hectares.

Balivillascafe says:  There are all kinds of tipping points and maybe this is another major one for Bali. As the number of people living here increases and the amount of farming land decreases, Bali now has to import rice. Sad situation and a big indicator along the 'progress highway'. Maybe in 50 years time Bali will have to import rice farmers from Thailand to stand at the edge of rice fields for tourists.

Solution: 1. Ban the sale of land to foreigners. 2. Ban the wholesale development of ricefields. 3. Make rice farming more attractive by subsidizing farmers.

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