Floods inflicted a material loss of more than Rp1 billion on farmers after inundating 308 hectares of paddy fields in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Province last week, ANTARA reported. The affected farming areas were located in West Sumbawa, Central Lombok and North Lombok, Dadih Permana, the NTB agricultural office head, said here on Wednesday. The local administration would provide paddy seedlings to farmers losing the crops, he said. NTB, which has a total of 350,000 hectares of paddy fields, has set a target of un-hulled dried paddy production at 1.8 million tons this year, an increase from 1.7 million tons a year earlier. "NTB enjoys a surplus of 300,000 tons of rice annually, and the surplus is sent to Maluku, Papua, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and Bali," he said.
