Anticipating El Nino, Food Agency Builds Early Warning System For Food And Nutrition Insecurity

Head of the National Food Agency Arief Prasetyo Adi. (Photo: Doc. Badanas)

JAKARTA - Head of the National Food Agency (NFA) Arief Prasetyo Adi said it was necessary to build an early warning system for food and nutrition insecurity to anticipate the El Nino phenomenon.

For your information, the El Nino phenomenon triggers drought. Meanwhile, El Nino is expected to peak in August to September.

"We agree that we must have an early warning system for food and nutrition insecurity. This is important especially because we face the threat of El Nino. So, every region must be vigilant and mitigate food and nutrition in their respective regions," said Arief in an official statement, Thursday, July 20.

Arief emphasized that the Food and Nutrition Insecurity System built by NFA together with provincial and city district governments is an early warning system that must be used to mitigate factors that affect the occurrence of El Nino.

"I want ladies and gentlemen who are at technical levels in the provinces and regencies of the city to really understand the Food and Nutrition Early Warning System (SKPG). So that the resulting data can later be accounted for and used to anticipate food and nutrition insecurity," said Arief.

This is in line with President Joko Widodo's directives in the Joint Limited Meeting of a number of Ministers of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet led by President Joko Widodo, on Tuesday, July 18 at the State Palace, where one of the focuses on anticipating the impact of El Nino is maintaining food security.

Arief emphasized that the mitigation pattern will start by building a digital-based system, so that each region knows the situation and condition of food and nutrition in its area.

"This is important because the system is compiled based on various aspects of food security starting from food availability, food affordability, and food utilization," he said.

As for various indicators in the aspect of food availability, including various data on the area of planting and puso for food commodities, food affordability aspects include data on food commodity prices in the specified period.

Meanwhile, aspects of food utilization include data on the nutritional status of toddlers.

"We also enter climate information support data as we are currently wary of Elnino who threatens food security. Of course, we collaborate with the relevant Ministries and institutions in fulfilling these various data, so that they can then produce conclusions that are categorized in three indicators, namely vulnerable, alert, and safe," he said.

Just so you know, this SKPG is based on a website that can be accessed through skpg.badanpangan.go.id and periodically produces data on food and nutrition-prone and city districts.