Indonesia will not experience a food crisis like what is happening in many neighboring countries, a senior agriculture official said here on Tuesday.
"We are and will be free from food crises. In the last four years (2004 to 2008) food commodity production has increased," Antara news agency quoted head of national food resilience affairs at the agriculture ministry Dr Achmad Suryana as saying.
He said the average annual production increase in the last four years for rice was 2.6 percent, corn 7.6 percent, soybean 1.4 percent, cassava 1.7 percent, palm oil 18.4 percent, sugar 21.9 percent, beef 6.5 percent, chicken 17.4 percent, chicken eggs 9.2 percent and fish 6.7 percent.
He also predicted that food production in 2008 would be higher than in 2007.
However, he admitted that a great number of Indonesians were still suffering from poverty and facing food shortages which had prompted the government to carry out agriculture-based economic development programs in villages such as the agri-business development program in 11,000 villages.
Source:Xinhua
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