Economist Suggests Perum Bulog Develop An Early Warning System On National Rice Stock

JAKARTA - Economist from the Islamic University of North Sumatra (UISU) Gunawan Benjamin advised Perum Bulog, who is under the leadership of the new President Director, Bayu Krisnamurthi, to develop an early warning system regarding national rice stocks.

"Thus, Bulog has insight into how much rice stock is needed to maintain prices," said Gunawan in Medan, quoted from Antara, Saturday, December 9.

"Early warning", the man who is also the Head of the North Sumatra Food Price Monitoring Team continued, will increase Bulog's ability to anticipate situations that have the potential to reduce national rice stocks and, in the end, increase prices.

For example, Gunawan continued, such as the El Nino phenomenon which made many rice centers in Indonesia fail to grow and fail to harvest so that rice prices soared.

Not only that, Gunawan believes early warning can generate Bulog innovations to anticipate other conditions that provoke an increase in rice prices, for example when fertilizer prices are increasingly expensive.

"Then, Bulog can also prepare when unexpected conditions appear like the last COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

Apart from that, Gunawan stated that Bayu Krisnamurthi ideally maintains all efforts to keep rice prices stable as it is today which he thinks is good.

"Bulog's performance under the leadership of the previous President Director, Budi Waseso, to control rice prices is quite good. But it will be much better when that performance is perfected," he said.

One way that can be done, Gunawan added, is by increasing Bulog's rice mills in Indonesia.

According to him, by adding more mills outside Java, Bulog's absorption of farmers' rice can be maximized.

"This is ideally a long-term program. Adding mills and warehouses will help Bulog absorb local farmers' rice," said Gunawan.

Bayu Krisnamurthi was appointed as President Director of Perum Bulog replacing Budi Waseso through the Decree of the Minister of SOEs number SK-341/MBU/12/2023 dated December 1, 2023 regarding the Dismissal and Appointment of Members of the Board of Directors of Perum Bulog.

Budi Waseso himself was appointed as President Commissioner of PT Semen Indonesia (Persero).