Rice Food Assistance To The Community Want To Continue Until June 2024, CBP Stock Enough?

JAKARTA The government promised to continue the food assistance program in the form of 10 kilograms (kg) of rice, which was originally until March to June 2024.

So, is the government's rice reserve stock (CBP) sufficient?

Head of NFA Arief Prasetyo Adi while accompanying the Head of State guarantees that CBP's stock for the implementation of rice food assistance in 2024 is sufficient.

According to Arief, constant strengthening of CBP stocks is important to accompany the implementation of distribution programs being intensified by the government.

For your information, until December 29, 2023, the disbursement of Government Rice Reserves (CBP) reached 2,761,856 tons. Of this total, the distribution of rice stabilization of Supply and Food Prices (SPHP) was 1,182,717 tons and rice food assistance for the second phase of September-December 848,696 tons.

Then, the first phase of rice food assistance in 2023 was 640,590 tons, the budget group was 87,551 tons, and the emergency response was 2,302 tons.

There are 1.4 million tons of rice in Bulog today. This continues, because we have distribution programs. Yesterday there was also a slight lag (slowdown) of 2 months of production due to the impact of El Nino's climate," said Arief in an official statement, Thursday, January 4.

"We together with Bulog always ensure that the stock of CBP is secured and sufficient, especially for the implementation of rice food assistance in 2024. One stage during the three months requires around 660,000 kg of rice," he continued.

Furthermore, Arief said that food stock availability guarantees were also prepared ahead of the 2024 General Election in February and April Eid al-Fitr this year.

"Food assistance like this will continue to be disbursed by the government as an economic cushion and levers of people's purchasing power," he said.

Apart from being an economic cushion, Arief explained that there was a role in the rice food assistance program for the national inflation movement, especially rice inflation. He said the disbursement of rice food assistance could also reduce market prices and control rice inflation itself.

"In 2023, we started launching the first phase of rice food assistance until July. The movement of rice inflation was quite under control and even in July the deflation was 0.02 percent. However, in August and September rice inflation began to rise. In September, rice inflation reached 5.61 percent," explained Arief.

According to Arief, the high inflation of rice in September was due to reduced supply and decreased production due to the impact of El Nino.

According to President Jokowi's direction, it will be addressed by re-rolling rice food aid.

"This is then proven to be able to continue to control rice inflation on a monthly basis," he said.

Meanwhile, Director of Perum Bulog Bayu Krisnamurthi said that his party is committed to absorbing domestic production this year. He also revealed that Bulog also focuses on preparing stocks for rice food assistance from 2024 to next June.

Earlier, the Minister of Agriculture said that starting at the end of March and April, it had started harvesting. So Bulog will absorb it from within the country. We at Bulog have been ordered to prepare to distribute (rice food assistance) within 6 months. So whatever the decision of the President, the goods already exist, the stock is there, and (we) can do that, "explained Bayu.