Netray Monitoring: Rare And Expensive Rice, Netizens Criticize Import And Social Assistance Policy

Personnel from the Gorontalo Police Ditreskrimsus chatted with traders on monitoring rice prices at the Central Market of Gorontalo City, Gorontalo. (Between/HO-Humas Polda)

Netizens continue to complain about the high price of rice. The increase in the price of basic commodities was then linked to the issue of social assistance for election campaigns. Netizens were also busy criticizing the government for the scarcity and high cost of this food.

The National Food Agency reported that in the past week the price of premium and medium rice continued to climb. Until February 22, 2024, the price of premium rice reached Rp. 16,270/kg, while the price of medium rice was Rp. 14,230/kg.

Looking at the map of the distribution of rice prices in Indonesia, the price of rice in all regions of Indonesia is above the highest retail price (HET). Central Papua is the area with the most expensive premium rice sales, which is IDR 24,120/kg. Likewise with the price of medium rice, the most expensive is IDR 21,090/kg in the Papua Mountains region.

The increase in commodity prices has attracted the attention of the mass media and netizens X, formerly Twitter. Netray Media Monitoring monitors this topic with the keywords of the two channels.

With the keyword Netray found 2.655 articles published by the online mass media during the monitoring period from February 15-21, 2024.

This news is divided into several categories, namely 1,127 or 42% Finance & Insurance, 727 or 27% Government, 342 or 13% Politic, "said theNetray report.

The increase in rice prices in several regions was later linked to government and political issues. This can be seen from social assistance and elections which are the dominant vocabulary found in this topic of expensive and rare rice reporting. According to a number of parties, the election social assistance is one of the factors in the skyrocketing rice price this week.

Aktual radar uploaded an article on rice imports as of January 2024. The article revealed that the total value of Indonesia's rice imports during the January 2024 period was recorded at 279.2 million dollars (Rp4.3 trillion). In the news, it was stated that the value of rice imports in 2024 increased by 135.1%.

However, the Acting Head of BPS Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti emphasized that imported rice was not immediately released to the market and was very dependent on government policies, so the pattern of rice imports was difficult to predict.

Indonesia is importing massively to meet rice needs, but this has actually led to poor speculation about the policy of social assistance disbursed by the government. No wonder this issue was also raised by a number of media. Launching the People's Mind, DPR Hidayatullah members give their opinion on the phenomenon of rare and expensive rice that is currently happening. He said this happened because of the social assistance being carried out in a jor-joran manner.

The rice phenomenon, which is not only expensive, but also rare, is thought to have something to do with the heated political situation. According to a number of circles, food aid activities during the campaign by the president were a form of effort to attract people's attention and voices, causing scarcity of rice in the market. Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy denied this issue.

"There is no (relation). Now the world's food reserves are zero. So the country that we used to be able to import, such as India, Thailand, Vietnam is now closed because they need to save themselves," he said at the Abdul Malik Islamic Boarding School. Fadjar Malang, Wednesday (21/2/2024).

He added that the decline in world food reserves was caused by weather changes which made many farmers fail to harvest, so it had nothing to do with the 2024 General Election.

"So it is indeed a food crisis due to extreme weather," he said.

Netizens also complained about the high price of rice. During the same period of monitoring and keywords, Netray found more than 132,000 uploads made by the account 39.8 accounts.

The tens of thousands of uploads received 152.2 thousand impressions with a potential reach of 247.6 million accounts, according toNetray.

Talks about the scarcity and high cost of this commodity peaked on February 20, 2024, with total conversations reaching 42,472 uploads a day. Talks about the scarcity of rice during the monitoring period on platform X are mostly filled with negative sentiment.

As in the mass media, netizens also associate this topic with elections and social assistance. However, not only rice that is crowded with netizens, but other basic food prices, such as eggs and oil, were shouted at by Twitter netizens.

Apart from being expensive, netizens also complain that a number of basic commodities are difficult to find in the market. Uploads regarding this topic touched tens of thousands of impressions in each tweet that were raised.

Social assistance and elections are also the vocabulary that netizens often use in criticizing this incident. The massive disbursement of social assistance ahead of the election is believed to be a rare and expensive cause of rice.

For this phenomenon, netizens flocked to criticize President Jokowi, who was considered a rare culprit and high in food. Not wanting to be left behind, netizens also criticized the social assistance issue used as a covert campaign.