GOVT TO INCREASE SOYBEAN PRODUCTION TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY LEVEL

Jakarta, March 3 (ANTARA) - The government plans to reduce soybean imports and try to increase domestic production so as to reach soybean self-sufficiency by 2014.

"We want to reduce soybean imports by 20 percent per year and increase domestic soybean production by 20 percent per year so that by 2014 we can hopefully become self-sufficient in the commodity," Agriculture Minister Suswono said after attending a coordination meeting on food resilience at the office of the coordinating minister for economic affairs here on Wednesday.

The agriculture minister said domestic demand for soybean was 2.1 million tons per year while domestic soybean production was only 900 tons per year and therefore the government still needed to import 1.2 million tons.

Suswono also expressed hope that soybean import could be reduced to speed up domestic product by expanding the soybean planting areas during the planting season.

"We can at least reduce the import by 200,000 tons, and it meas that this year we can only import at least 1 million tons," he said.

To be self-sufficient in soybean, the agriculture minister said new fields should be opened in the future to increase the domestic product.

"In the long term, we need to open new fields of soybean center such as in Aceh, East Java, and other provinces where soybean can grow well," the minister said.