INDONESIAN agriculture officials routinely inflate rice harvest data to present a rosy picture to the government and keep farm subsidies flowing, but their latest phoney numbers could lead to a severe shortage of the staple in coming months, officials say.

    If the data had been correct, Indonesia would be awash with rice supplies and the country’s president would have less to worry about. The number rigging, critics say, flies in the face of food self-sufficiency targets that Joko Widodo has been aggressively pursuing since taking office in 2014.

    “These numbers are so exaggerated,” said a senior government official, who declined to be named. “We’re scrambling right now to build stocks in case there’s a failed harvest in February and March.”

    Another government official, who works on agriculture issues, confirmed that the numbers are rigged.

    Only last month, supply shortages forced the government to hurriedly import rice from Thailand and Vietnam to avoid a surge in prices, which in the past has sparked civil unrest and contributed to the downfall of autocratic leader Suharto.

    Warehouses should be bulging with tens of millions of tons of rice, if harvest data are to be believed, but every January officials reset the numbers to zero and the stock just evaporates from the books, the senior official said.

    “There’s actually some very real vested interests behind some of these distortions,” he said, referring to Indonesia’s endemic corruption but giving no details. (SD-Agencies)