Prevent Losses, Badanas Reminds Not To Plant Commodities Without Markets

JAKARTA Head of the National Food Agency (NFA) Arief Prasetyo Adi emphasized that the direction of national food development must be based on market real needs. According to him, food production that does not have a market will only cause harm. This he surfaced when attending the Patriot Expedition Team's Briefing and Release in Jakarta, Sunday, August 24.

"In the future, when building an area, don't plant something that doesn't have a market. The existing potential must be connected to the market. For example, if the potential is rice or corn, then land, irrigation, seeds, post-harvest, storage, and distribution must be prepared in its entirety in one package," said Arief in his statement.

Arief gave an example of the success of the transmigration program under President Soeharto's era in empowering transmigrant families to manage productive land. In Papua, for example, transmigrants are able to develop local agriculture such as watermelons and vegetables to meet the needs of the surrounding market.

"I've witnessed firsthand how transmigrants in Timika develop local agriculture, from watermelons to vegetables, which are then supplied for the needs of the surroundings. This is proof that food independence can start from the regions. One of them is by strengthening productive transmigration," he said.

"In the past, when I was still working there, I was asked to find a source of food suppliers. So because I only got about 120 containers a month, I had to prioritize local source. So indeed local source must be prioritized to meet our consumption needs," added Arief.

On that occasion, Arief encouraged 2,000 academic community members of the Patriot Expedition Team to seriously conduct economic research and mapping in 154 transmigration areas. The results are expected to strengthen domestic food security while supporting President Prabowo Subianto's vision of realizing food self-sufficiency.

According to him, strategic foods such as rice, corn, soybeans, meat, eggs, and onions must be controlled by the state. He said that currently most national food needs have been met from local production, with production ratios to consumption exceeding 100 percent for several commodities, such as cayenne pepper (172 percent), large chilies (171 percent), shallots (115 percent), broiler meat (110 percent), corn (106 percent), broiler eggs (105 percent), rice (101 percent), and cooking oil (100 percent).

However, Indonesia still relies on imports for ruminant meat, consumption sugar, garlic, and soybeans. Arief said, imports are carried out selectively so as not to harm local farmers.

In addition, he highlighted the importance of food diversification considering that the consumption of the Indonesian people still relies on rice and oil. The government through the Free Nutrition Food (MBG) program encourages people to expand consumption of tubers and nuts as well as open up more varied local food production opportunities.