Agricom.id, BOJONEGORO – Some districts in Indonesia would harvest paddy massively in March – April. In the pandemic of corona virus (Covid-19), District of Bojonegoro produced 416.812 tons of dry grain.

Head of Agriculture Agency, District of Bojonegoro, Helmy Elisabeth said that the massive harvest in the district has been running since March 2020 and April 2020 is the peak.

“As one paddy field center in East Java province, Bojonegoro ensured that the rice stocks are in good condition,” she said, Monday (6/04/2020) as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

She thought that the harvest in the first planting in this year would be the stocks namely in the situation like this – facing the Covid-19. The total paddy plantations in March reached 10.675 hectares (ha) or equal to 70.725 dry grain.

While the peak in April, she continued, the total paddy field to harvest would be 49.441 ha or 346.087 tons of dry grain. Before the harvest time, the farmers in the district were trained to use the agriculture system tools.

“This would make optimal work to accelerate the cultivation of the soil, plantation, and effective time namely in this harvest like now,” she said.

Meanwhile, General Director of Food Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture, Suwandi said that his side implements the health protocol to deal with Covid-19 when doing massive harvest, just like many farmers have done in many regions.

“Besides implementing the health protocol, (we suggest them to) use the post-harvest infrastructures,” he said,

He also told that ministry of agriculture, the regional governments, and the partners keep doing the best to maintain the domestic stocks of food and hoped that the people should not worry about.

“We are being tested but the people need to know that the farmers in many regions in this country still do the best to fulfill our food. Insya Allah everything would be in good condition,” he said.

He also mentioned that based on what Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo told, the procurement, distribution and price of foods during the epidemic of Covid-19 should be in control, namely, the rice. The thing to face the massive harvest of paddy is to mobilize Komando Strategi Penggilingan Padi (kostraling).

"This breakthrough is done so that the milling could buy the grain directly from the farmers and the modal could be borrowed from kredit usaha rakyat and other sources. The rice from the milling could be sold directly or online in cooperation with the start-up companies,” he said. (A2)