REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BENGKULU -- The unhulled rice production of the city of Bengkulu shrank 50 percent in the first eight months of the year from the same period last year.

Head of the city agriculture and animal husbandry office Matriani Amran attributed the rice production fall to long drought.

The production in the first harvest was not up to expectation, and after that the farmers could not grow the crop for irrigation problem, Matriani said here on Thursday.

Normally, the city's production of unhulled rice reached 6 to 9 tons per hectares , but this year the production is expected to reach only 3 to 4 tons per hectare, she said.

Around 800 hectares of rice fields in the city area are inadequately irrigated, she said, adding the water from the river of Muara Bangkahulu could not reach the rice field.

Most of the rice fields are located too far from the river and the ones around the river are higher than the water surface, which already fell much lower.

"The river water volume is much lower during the lengthy dry season that they could not reach the rice fields," she said.

Problem in irrigation could speed up conversion of the land into property land, she said.

Many other areas in the country has also reported decline in farm production for the extreme dry season this year.

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