Around 4.51 million hectares of rice plantations are expected to reach harvest between January and April this year, compared with 4.41 million hectares in the same period last year, although the bureau warned the threat of heavy rain in some regions could disrupt production. "The rice production potential could be corrected due to impact of weather in February," Pudji Ismartini, an official at Statistics Indonesia, told reporters. Much of Indonesia, a tropical country, faced high rainfall last month, which has left some rice plantation areas submerged in floodwater. Higher rice prices were among the top contributors to inflation in February.
Indonesia food procurement agency Bulog has imported 500,000 tonnes of rice to help stabilise prices.
(Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)
