POLICE in the West Java District of Cirebon have an extra job to do these days: keeping a round-the-clock watch over irrigation sluices in the area. In the dry season, as it is now, quarrels among farmers for water are becoming a common occurrence.

Increasingly, rice-producing areas like Cirebon have suffered from drought in the dry season and flooding in the rainy season. This year’s drought is especially hard on farmers not only in Cirebon,