The decreasing plantation area of rice in Bengkulu province

In the span of 2018-2020, the total plantation area of rice in Bengkulu province in the southern Sumatra region has decreased significantly as the result of the local farmers' preference to shift to the production of palm kernel fruits and nuts. There are only 400 hectares of plantation land available for rice in 2020, a sharp decrease from the original 1,500 hectares in 2018. The farmers in this region have slowly shifted to palm oil as it is viewed as a more profitable option as they just need to rent their land to the national palm oil manufacturers and gain revenue from the annual fee. As a result of the shrinking of plantations land for rice, this province can only contribute to an average of 1.7 MMT of rice since 2018.