President Prabowo is confident, Indonesia will become the world's food warehouse

West Lombok - President Prabowo believes that Indonesia will become a world food warehouse. This was conveyed by President Prabowo when he inaugurated five dams directly from West Lombok, NTB, Friday, July 10.

The five dams consist of the Meninting Dam in West Nusa Tenggara, the Jlantah Dam in Central Java, the Sidan Dam in Bali, as well as the Keureuto Dam and the Rukoh Dam in Aceh. The plan is that the dams have a capacity of 371 million cubic meters and are able to support rice production of up to 720 thousand tons per year.

In his remarks, President Prabowo said that the presence of the dam further strengthened his belief that Indonesia would strengthen its position as a world food reserve in the future. According to him, Indonesia is currently taking steps towards this goal.

For example, Indonesia has achieved self-sufficiency in rice last year, thus opening up opportunities for exports. In addition, Indonesia is also projected to record a surplus of supply in a number of other strategic food commodities. According to President Prabowo, a number of countries have even asked Indonesia to supply their food needs. Meanwhile,

Minister of Public Works Dody Hanggodo explained that the existence of the five dams was designed to support the targets of food, energy, and water self-sufficiency as stated in the Asta Cita of the Prabowo government. According to Dody, from the perspective of food security, the five dams are able to provide irrigation services for agricultural land of around 40 thousand hectares (ha) which is supported by an irrigation network of around 280 kilometers (km).

The infrastructure is also capable of supplying raw water of 3.6 cubic meters per second and helping reduce the potential for flooding in an area of around 932 hectares.

In addition to supporting the agricultural sector, Dody said that the dams also contributed to strengthening national energy resilience through the potential of hydropower plants and the development of floating solar power plants.