Indonesia underwent close to average conditions between August and October, while the dry season maize and rice is entering generative or early ripening stage. Compared with the recent thirteen-year average for the same period, precipitation was significantly (20%) below average--the possible result of El Niño conditions building up. The CropWatch agroclimatic indices also indicate warmer than average weather and a RADPAR increase of 4%.Nevertheless, influenced by the lack of rain, biomass accumulation was still much below average (-21%). This is consistent with the NDVI profile, which stayed slightly below the five-year average for the recent two months.Additional spatial information provided by NDVI clusters shows mostly below average conditions in Nangroe, Aceh, Darussalam, and Nusatenggara Timur, but generally average for most of the country’s islands.

Figure3.15. Indonesia crop condition, July-October2014

(a) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI  (b) Maximum VCI

(c) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA                 (d) NDVI profile