Garlic Prices Rise, Food Agency And Ministry Of Trade Accelerate Import Procurement

JAKARTA The National Food Agency (Bapanas) ensures that it continues to strengthen cooperation and coordination with the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) to accelerate the process and realization of foreign procurement in response to the latest stock dynamics and price of garlic.

Head of Badanas Arief Prasetyo Adi said the procurement was needed to encourage additional supplies so that they could maintain the stability of garlic prices at the consumer level.

According to Arief, his party has intensely continued to communicate with the Ministry of Trade to discuss the progress of issuing garlic Import Licensing (SPI).

"We continue to jointly coordinate with the Ministry of Trade to accelerate procurement, all documents have been prepared and the process is ongoing," he said in an official statement, Tuesday, May 30.

The regulations related to procurement from outside (imports) are related to several ministries/agencies.

Issuance of the Horticulture Product Import Plan (RIPH) quota is the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, the Import Licensing Letter (SPI) is the domain of the Ministry of Trade.

Meanwhile, Badanas calculates the availability and needs of food as the basis for policy formulation and determination of import needs.

As is known, garlic is one of the food commodities that still requires additional supplies from abroad to meet domestic consumption.

For this reason, the condition of the domestic commodity price cannot be separated from the influence of international prices or in the country of origin.

In fact, Arief said previously the price of garlic in China was above 1,300 US dollars per ton, which also caused prices in the country to rise.

Meanwhile, for the condition of garlic prices at the consumer level based on the Bapanas Food Price Panel as of May 29, 2023, the national average price of garlic is at IDR 36,875 per kg, or slightly increased compared to last week's position of IDR 36,340 per kg.

Regarding the availability of garlic, Arief asked the public not to worry.

The reason is, with the planning that has been carried out by Bapanas and related ministries/agencies to ensure the availability of garlic is maintained throughout the year.

"We also continue to monitor and calculate through the National Food Balance. This is in accordance with the President's direction so that food price supply and balance are maintained throughout the year," he said.

Based on the National Food Balance Prognosis January-December 2023, the national garlic demand in a year is around 652,000 tons, while domestic production is around 18,000 tons and initial stock or carry-over from 2022 is 143,000 tons.

"To cover the shortage, foreign procurement planning has been carried out, so it is estimated that the national garlic stock at the end of 2023 will be available at 99,000 tons," he explained.

Likewise, for the period until June 2023, according to him, based on the calculation of the Food Balance, the national garlic stock at the end of June 2023 was available at around 14,000 tons.

This amount is based on the addition of initial stock or carry-over from 2022 of 143,000 tons, domestic production until June 11,000 tons, and the realization of the ongoing foreign procurement plan for January-June 2023.

Although he still relies on foreign procurement, Arief ensures that the absorption of domestic garlic production remains a priority.

"Like other basic commodities, of course, we will continue to prioritize the use of domestic production products," he said.

Regarding efforts to maintain price stability in the future, Arief added, this year Bapanas through Food SOEs has started filling Government Food Reserves (CPP) for garlic commodities.

"We have started to fill it in gradually, we are targeting to have a stock of 55.7,000 tons of CPP garlic so that it can be optimized for intervention steps to maintain price stability and emergency conditions," he explained.