Anticipating Drought, Indonesian Govt Allocates 93,860 Water Pumps

Jakarta, MINA – Indonesian government increases awareness of areas that prevent drought, puso, and land fires. Dry season is predicted to be drier compared to previous years.

To reduce the impact of drought and puso, Directorate General of Agricultural Infrastructure and Facilities of Ministry of Agriculture has allocated a number of pumps allocated to the provincial and regency/city level agricultural services.

“We have instructed all heads of district offices that need drought, can use this pump to help farmers,” said Director General of Agriculture Infrastructure and Facilities, Ministry of Agriculture Sarwo Edhy at Adaptation Wealth and Coordination Meeting at Ministry of Agriculture Office Building, Jakarta, Monday, July 8.

He revealed that the number of water pumps allocated by Ministry of Agriculture for 2015-2018 period was 93,860 units. Especially for areas affected by drought, available air pumps reach 19,999 units.

“Drought will be expected to spend the next few months, anticipating the need for air pumps, potential air sources to get pipelines so that we can resolve the drought. “The security of plant stands is done with all parties, so it is resolved well,” he said.

Based on the monitoring of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the peak of season is predicted to occur in July – August 2019. The dry season can be target for rice plants.

Most of the islands of Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara have not been raining for 30 days. More than 100 cities and districts affected by drought totaling 102,654 hectares and 9,940 hectares.

One of the causes of drought on agricultural land is a blocked irrigation system. Ministry of Agriculture itself has agreed to fix air governance by facilitating the development of air infrastructure for agriculture.

Sarwo said that another effort to mitigate drought was to use air sources where there were 11,654 agricultural ponds and 4,042 pumping plantations near drought-affected areas. (T/Sj/P2)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)