The effects of tight rice supplies on food security are exacerbated by the severe financial and economic crisis, which has sharply reduced the country's capacity to import food, feed and other agricultural inputs, according to the mission's report. This figure assumes normal weather conditions for the second season crop in 1998, which provides about one-third of annual production. According to the report, the national Meteorological Agency is cautiously optimistic in predicting a normal season with 50 percent probability giving a renewed drought only a 15 percent chance.
Rice is Indonesia's staple crop.
An estimated population of 203 million people consumes an average of 149 kg of rice per caput per year, as compared to 26 kg of maize and 19 kg of wheat. Rice production for 1998 is estimated at 47.5 million tonnes of paddy, 3.6 percent down on last year's harvest, over 6 percent down on the 1996 harvest of 50.6 million tonnes and 11 percent below the official target. More than 90 percent of the decrease in paddy production is a direct result of a reduction in planted area in response to the drought. When the rains came two months late at the end of 1997, many farmers had already planted crops such as maize, soybean and roots and tubers, instead of rice. Increases in production are forecast for these secondary crops.