JAKARTA - Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Andi Amran Sulaiman stated that the government continues to strengthen national food security independently so that it remains stable in the midst of global geopolitical dynamics, without relying on other countries.
"The world is facing a serious threat of a food crisis. Therefore, every country must strengthen its food security and must not depend on other countries," he said in a statement in Jakarta, Sunday.
He emphasized that this was in response to the threat of a global food crisis that could increase due to the Middle East conflict which has the potential to trigger instability in the supply and price of food in various countries in the world today.
The latest report from the World Food Programme (WFP) warns that the escalation of the conflict could push the number of people in the world suffering from acute hunger to a record high, with an additional 45 million people by 2026.
He assessed that the condition shows that food security is a global strategic issue, because rising energy prices, shipping disruptions, and logistics costs can trigger food inflation like the previous crisis.
He explained that rising energy prices, disruptions to international shipping routes, and rising logistics costs could potentially trigger global food inflation, as was the case during the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022.
The impact of the conflict is not only felt in war-torn regions, but spreads throughout the world through global supply chains. Countries that rely on food imports are most vulnerable to spikes in prices and shortages of supplies.
In the midst of the threat of a global food crisis, he said, Indonesia was actually considered to be on the right track towards food independence.
The agricultural development program implemented by the government today is not only focused on increasing production, but also building a strong, modern, and sustainable agricultural system.
"We must be optimistic. Indonesia has land, water, climate, and human resources. If all of these are maximized, self-sufficiency is not a dream, the world's food reserve is not impossible, it is wrong if we let these strengths go," he said.
"The strategy of increasing production through the intensification and expansion program simultaneously, he said, the results were seen last year where Indonesia managed to achieve rice self-sufficiency," he said.
Intensification is carried out through increasing land productivity with superior seeds, agricultural mechanization, pumping, and increasing the crop index, while expansion is carried out through the rice paddies printing program and the optimization of swamp land as a new production source.
"Self-sufficient, absolutely self-sufficient. We not only increase the productivity of existing land, but also open new land through rice paddies and optimize swamp land. We must optimize everything. Production must increase significantly," said Amran.
The government also carried out massive reforms in the agricultural sector by issuing 13 Presidential Regulations in the agricultural sector, the largest number in history, and revoking about 500 internal regulations that were considered to hinder the acceleration of national agricultural programs.
He said the most significant reform was in fertilizer management. If previously the distribution of fertilizer involved hundreds of regulations and approvals across regions, now the mechanism has been cut to a direct line from the Ministry of Agriculture to Pupuk Indonesia to farmers.
The impact, he said, was quite large, fertilizer costs fell by 20 percent and the volume of fertilizer increased by 700 thousand tons without additional state budget burden.
In addition to deregulation, the transformation of agricultural modernization is also the key to increasing national production. Agricultural mechanization allows for labor efficiency of up to 90 percent, accelerating the planting and harvesting process, and encouraging the planting index from one to two to three plantings per year.
This efficiency reduces production costs by up to 50 percent and has a direct impact on improving farmers' welfare.
National rice production surplus, reaching around 34.7 million tons or up around 13 percent compared to the previous year, while the government rice reserve (CBP) currently reaches more than 4 million tons and is optimistic to continue to increase in the coming months.
To strengthen long-term production, the government also carries out a program to optimize swamp land as a strategy for national production expansion.
The government has started revitalizing hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in Kalimantan with a modern irrigation system as the initial stage of developing new food areas in Indonesia. This program is projected to be a source of new rice production in the future.
Through a combination of deregulation, agricultural modernization, rice paddies, pumping, land optimization, and strengthening the price policy for farmers, he said, the government places the food sector as an anchor of national economic stability as well as the foundation of sustainable self-sufficiency.
"We must not be afraid of the global food crisis. This is precisely the momentum for Indonesia to become a food-independent country and become the world's food warehouse, we turn the world," said Amran.
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