Red and White Cooperative, Don't Be Forced, but Don't Let It Die

President Prabowo Subianto wants 81 thousand Red and White Village and Neighborhood Cooperatives to break the trap of usurers. He also wants money to keep circulating in the village, farmers get better prices, subsidized goods do not leak, and residents get loans with interest that does not strangle.

It's hard to deny the idea. In many villages, farmers need money for their children's school, treatment, fertilizer, or waiting for the rice to be sold. When the bank feels far away and the procedure is long, the usurers come faster. Prabowo said that some charge interest of up to 1 percent a day. In such a situation, he said, it is deadly.

A healthy cooperative can be a way out. It can be a place to borrow money, grocery store, pharmacy, warehouse, cold storage, fertilizer and LPG distributor, as well as buyers of residents' products.

At the 79th National Cooperative Summit at GBK, Jakarta, Sunday, July 12, 2026, President Prabowo in his speech estimated that the program could make Rp. 233 trillion circulate every year in the village. He also estimated that the income of farmers, livestock farmers, and fishermen could increase to Rp. 202 trillion.

The number is big. The hope is even bigger. Therefore, this program should not only pursue numbers.

The government has prepared financing of up to Rp3 billion for each cooperative. At the end of 2025, Minister of Cooperatives Ferry Juliantono said that around Rp2.5 billion was needed for buildings, equipment, supporting facilities, and operational vehicles. In a meeting with Commission VI of the DPR in November 2025, PT Agrinas said that the cost of one building was around Rp1.658 billion.

"Buildings are indeed needed. However, buildings should not come before business.

What will be sold? Who is the buyer? Where is the goods supplied? How much sales are needed to pay the installments? Who will bear the loss if the business is quiet? Is the location really suitable?

In social media, it is widely known that the Kopdes building stands in a location that is considered unusual, ranging from the middle of the rice fields to near the cemetery. Information from social media still needs to be checked one by one, but it is enough to be an excuse for the government to open the basis for the selection of the location and business plan of each cooperative.

"Cooperatives are not gifts. Prabowo himself has reminded that the funds used are loans and must be returned. Programs that want to free residents from expensive debts should not make villages bear long installments because the building is completed first, while the business is only thought of later.

Some of the burden also comes into direct contact with the Village Fund.

In its report, Kompas.id noted that Minister of Finance Regulation Number 7 of 2026 directed 58.03 percent of the Village Fund to support the Red and White Cooperative. From the national ceiling of Rp. 60.57 trillion, approximately Rp. 34.57 trillion was allocated for the program. The remaining approximately Rp. 25 trillion for other needs in the village.

In fact, the Village Fund is not idle money. The funds are used for roads, clean water, sanitation, health, food security, and the needs of the people that have been prepared through village planning. When more than half of the budget is directed from the center, the village options become narrower.

This is where the problem lies. Cooperatives stand on the basis of voluntary and member decisions. However, the way they are financed is risky and feels like an order from above.

The needs of each village are also not the same. Fishing villages need ice machines and cold storage. Agricultural villages need warehouses, drying equipment for crops, fertilizers, and transport vehicles. Villages near the city may not need new stores because there are already many stalls and markets.

Uniform is suitable for ceremonies. Village work cannot be made from one mold.

Similar caution applies in preparing managers. It is known that as many as 35,476 participants in the Indonesian Development Driving Bachelor Program have attended training at various TNI education units to be prepared as candidates for the Red and White Village Cooperative and Red and White Fishermen Village managers. Five participants died in less than two weeks. The Ministry of Defense then evaluated the program, reduced military activities, and stopped shooting exercises.

The incident left one important lesson. Big targets sometimes go faster than human readiness.

A candidate manager does need discipline. But they will deal with financial statements more often than guns. They need to understand stocks, credit, marketing, and how to refuse the patronage of powerful people.

The biggest threat to cooperatives is not a lack of rows and rows. The real threat is black bookkeeping, loans to close people, missing goods, consignment suppliers, and managers who consider cooperatives to be family owned.

However, caution should not turn into an excuse to remain silent. As long as the outlet is not running, farmers still borrow at high interest rates. Fishermen still sell fish in a weak position. Buildings that have been completed still require costs even though the door has not made money.

Therefore, the success of the Red and White Cooperative should not only be calculated from the number of legal entities, buildings, or inaugurations. Measure from how many farmers are free from usurers, how many fishermen get better prices, how much subsidy really reaches the people, and how the cooperative is able to pay its obligations without spending the Village Fund.

President Prabowo himself said the government did not need to rush. "If we are only able to 5,000, we will inaugurate it. Don't rush," he said.

The sentence deserves to be a brake, but not an excuse to stop.

The Red and White Cooperative does not need to be rushed. However, do not let it stagnate between new buildings, long meetings, and businesses that have not yet opened.

It is better to have five thousand cooperatives alive than 81 thousand buildings standing tall, but empty or not knowing what to sell.