INDONESIA: Many farmers in Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province may never again be able to work their land, thousands of hectares of which are coated with salty clay, UN agriculture officials reported yesterday.
With some coastal land now unsuitable for rice crops, the government may have to consider moving surviving farmers to new areas, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation officials said after assessing farmland.
Some 20,000 hectares of wetland farms and 30,000 hectares of dryland were affected by the giant earthquake-triggered waves on December 26th which left more than 230,000 Indonesians killed or missing.
"Large areas are heavily silted and may not be suitable for farming again," Mr David Hitchcock, an FAO development specialist, said after briefing Indonesian officials and non-government organisations. "There is an option of moving further inland . . . It is a matter of the government saying 'here is the land'."
Environmental groups have expressed concerns over the possible impact on forests and other natural habitats if people move inland as a result of the tsunami.
However, Mr Hitchcock said that there was an abundance of resources in Sumatra.
The main problem resulting from moving people would be "social".
FAO officials said that in some valleys on the hardest-hit west coast of Aceh the sea water had reached as far as five kilometres inland.
Mr Hiroshi Hiroaka, an FAO soil scientist, said that along parts of the east coast the sediment on top of the land was thin, but on the west coast it was as thick as 10cm.
Physically scraping off that layer might not be practical, he said. Other options included remixing the soil or changing the type of farming.
"Even if it would be technically possible to grow crops, the people are not able, because the system was wiped out. There are no irrigation channels, no drainage channels, no roads," said Mr Ronald Dijk, an FAO land and water management expert.
He said that less than one-third of the farmland on the west coast was immediately useable.