ADB ready to provide $30 m loan for RI`s rice development

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is ready to provide US$3 million in loans to develop rice through the system of rice intensification (SRI) in Indonesia, an Agriculture Ministry official said. 

The project would target three districts of Bandung, Cianjur and Karawang in West Java from 2009 to 2011, Director of Land Management of the Directorate General of Land and Water Management at the Agriculture Ministry Suhartono said on Tuesday. 

"The project will involve 150 farmer groups and require 3,000 hectares of paddy field," he said on the sidelines of a national workshop on the system of rice intensification (SRI) at the Agriculture Ministry building here. 

In addition to the ADB loans, the Agriculture Ministry would this year set aside funds to cultivate rice on 4,260 hectares of land through the system across the country, he said. 

The project would involve 213 farmer groups with each of them cultivating rice on 20 hectares of land through the system, he said. 

So far, 28 districts in 15 of the country`s 33 provinces had cultivated rice on 3,200 hectares of land by applying the system, he said.