Minister Of Home Affairs Urges Regions To Campaign For Food Boros Stop Movement

Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian at the Regional Inflation Control Coordination Meeting (Rakor) at the Sasana Bhakti Praja Building (SBP), Office of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri), Jakarta, Monday (11/9/2023). ANTARA/HO-Puspen Ministry of Home Affairs

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian appealed to local governments to help campaign for the food-intensive stop movement.

"We have to work together to convey to the public that we eat and buy enough," Tito said as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, September 11.

The reason, he said, so far, a lot of food has been wasted in Indonesia due to excessive food consumption.

For this reason, he asked the regions to follow the efforts made by the Medan City Family Welfare and Empowerment Mobilization Team (TP PKK).

Based on data compiled by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), rice commodity prices are known to be experiencing an increase. Therefore, efforts to campaign for the movement to stop wasteful food are important and can help control prices.

The Minister of Home Affairs said the government had taken various steps in anticipating the increase in rice commodity prices.

"For rice, this is our attention because it can happen, and this is almost the same as the BPS data earlier, there is a deficit. Importation is very important and the readiness of stock reserves is also very important," he added.

Tito said the Government through the National Food Agency (Bapanas) had intervened by distributing rice social assistance to 21.3 million beneficiary families.

Regarding this effort, he encouraged Bapanas to cooperate with the regional government. Thus, the assistance is distributed on target.

In addition, Tito also encouraged regions to participate in the distribution of social assistance to the community. Local governments can optimize these efforts through budget instruments contained in the Regional Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBD).

"Please also be able to cover the same social assistance movement using the existing APBD instruments, both from regular social assistance, from social assistance managed by social services, as well as from BTT," said Tito.

To respond to the potential increase in rice prices, he appealed to regions to participate in campaigning for food diversification measures to the community. This means that people are encouraged not only to depend on rice commodities, but also other healthy foods, such as sago, taro, sweet potatoes, and potatoes.

"Moreover, this food has also been consumed by many people, especially in eastern Indonesia," he said.