Floods, Farmers In North Aceh Loss Of Rp. 42 Billion

JAKARTA - The North Aceh Regency Agriculture and Food Service said that the loss of rice, corn and soybean farmers in the local district was estimated at tens of billions of rupiah due to floods that hit almost all sub-districts in the area in early December.

"The total loss after we estimated it was around Rp42.3 billion," said Erwandi, Acting Head of the North Aceh Agriculture and Food Service, in North Aceh, as reported by Antara, Wednesday, December 23.

He explained that the figure was calculated by his party after collecting data on areas of damaged rice, corn, soybeans, to puso or dead.

Erwandi detailed, for seeds that were still in the resting stage, there were around 5,249 hectares of planted area that were flooded, of which 2,807 hectares were totally damaged or dead, scattered over rice fields in nine sub-districts.

Meanwhile, the area of rice plants affected by flooding from one day of planting to before harvest reached 13,372 hectares, of which 4,561 hectares were completely damaged.

He said the rice plants were spread across 16 sub-districts including Meurah Mulia, Lhoksukon, Baktiya, Baktiya Barat, Matang Kuli and Pirak Timu, Seunuddon and a number of other sub-districts.

For corn plants, he continued, those affected by flooding are around 95 hectares and 74 hectares of damaged or dead are in total. The area is spread over four sub-districts, namely Langkahan, Baktiya, Tanah Luas and Meurah Mulia.

Meanwhile, he added, about five hectares of soybeans were affected by the flood, which resulted in total death, which were in the Cot Girek District.

"Until today, that is the data that has entered us, and Alhamdulillah, there are no more floods, so the area of the affected rice fields has not increased," he said.

The North Aceh Agriculture and Food Service will report the losses of farmers due to the floods that have hit more than two weeks to the Aceh Government. Then it has also submitted an application to the Ministry of Agriculture for assistance with seeds for farmers.

"We have submitted a letter, first to the governor of Aceh to request that the aid for free land cultivation be facilitated for farmers whose rice plants are puso or dead," he said.

In addition, his party has also proposed a request to the Government of Aceh to facilitate insurance for rice farmers, especially in areas that are at risk of being affected by flooding in order to protect farmers in the event of flooding in the future.

As is known, the flood due to high rainfall which was exacerbated by the breakdown of river embankments at several points resulted in 23 sub-districts in North Aceh being flooded with water levels ranging from 50 centimeters to 2.5 meters.

The flood has damaged houses, collapsed embankments, roads and a number of other infrastructure.