In a rain-making ritual, women in a village in Java chant, “All farmers let us pray that rain comes and washes our sorrow away,” reports Reuters. Seasonal rains are late in reaching Java, the main rice-growing island of Indonesia, the fourth-most populous nation in the world with 254 million people. “Crop failures caused by an El Nino drought presage more pain for Southeast Asia’s largest economy, which is already growing at its slowest pace in six years, by squeezing incomes, fanning inflation and pushing more people into poverty.”
The national weather agency says 20 of the country’s 34 provinces are in severe drought. The World Bank estimates that if there is a severe El Nino weather pattern this year, rice production would fall nearly 3 percent and rice prices would soar 10 percent. The government has put money into social supports for the poor but is unwilling to import rice, preferring to be self-sufficient in the staple crop. “One-third of the labour force works in farming, and more than half of poor households live off the land,” says Reuters.