JAKARTA, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Wednesday proposed to boost fertiliser subsidies by 14 trillion rupiah ($904 million) as the country aims to increase rice output that was hit by the El Nino weather pattern last year.
Indonesia's rice production for 2023 is expected to be 2% lower than a year earlier due to a prolonged drought driven by El Nino, while planting for this year's main harvest season has been delayed.
The country's meteorological agency BMKG has forecast El Nino will persist in early 2024 and gradually neutralise by April.
Indonesia expected to plant 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of rice fields in January and 1.4 million hectares in February as the rainy season has started, the president popularly known as Jokowi said, and the government would provide 1.7 million tons of fertilisers for the period.
"I have told the agriculture minister and finance minister to propose an additional fertiliser subsidy budget of around 14 trillion rupiah," Jokowi said.
Indonesia has so far allocated 26.68 trillion rupiah for fertiliser subsidies in its 2024 budget. In 2023, it spent 42.1 trillion rupiah to subsidise 6.1 million metric tons of fertilisers, the finance ministry said.
The country's rice output is expected to increase to 32 million metric tons in 2024 from 30.9 million tonnes in 2023.
($1 = 15,485.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Writing by Bernadette Christina; Editing by Sonali Paul)
