Coordinating Minister Airlangga Hartarto: Food Security Is Important In Encouraging Economic Growth

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto (center) during a working visit to the region. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government through the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Airlangga Hartarto, said that food security is included in the National Development Agenda for 2022-2024 by prioritizing programs to increase the availability, access, and quality of food consumption.

"Fiscal policies are taken by the Government through the 2022 State Budget also include food security as a priority development agenda and encourage economic growth", he said in an official statement, Tuesday, November 30.

According to Airlangga, next year the food security budget will reach IDR 76.9 trillion with a focus on four things, namely food price affordability, increasing productivity, food diversification, improving the business climate and competitiveness, and developing food estates.

“The agricultural sector has proven to be quite resilient in the midst of a pandemic. For that, we also hope that this sector can contribute to exports", he said.

Furthermore, considering the importance of maintaining national food security, Coordinating Minister Airlangga explained that the government is also making efforts to maintain food security through four strategies.

First, it is related to affordability in terms of increasing community food access through collaboration with SOEs.

Second, maintaining food availability by maintaining the supply of food stocks, which is carried out through increasing domestic productivity and substituting activities that depend on other countries. Three, related to improving food quality and safety.

"Fourth, the last thing is no less important, namely maintaining the resilience and sustainability of natural resources, for example through the establishment of protected paddy fields or controlling the conversion of paddy fields, cultivation diversification, use of organic fertilizers, and maintenance of irrigation networks", he explained.

On that occasion, Coordinating Minister Airlangga also explained the issue of food estate which was carried out on a corporate basis so that farmers would group up, either in the form of cooperatives or Gapoktan. This is intended to make it easier to provide access to assistance, financing, and other facilities provided by the Government and in collaboration with SOEs and the private sector.

"As directed by the President, apart from Central Kalimantan, food estates are currently being worked on in North Sumatra, as well as in Papua. As one of the food estate pilot projects, Central Kalimantan has shown quite encouraging progress. Support from all parties is the key to the success of this program", concluded Coordinating Minister Airlangga.