Beef Availability Is Still Sufficient Even Though The PMK Outbreak Continues To Spread

Head of the National Food Agency Arief Prasetyo Adi. (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The National Food Agency ensures the availability of beef is still sufficient even though the current epidemic of mouth and nail disease (FMD) is still hitting some breeders throughout Indonesia.

Head of the National Food Agency (BPN) Arief Prasetyo Adi said there are three choices for people who want to consume beef. , Tuesday June 7th.

Arief explained, to meet the demand for beef consumption of around 700,000 tons per year with an average of 58,000 per month, the government has been seeking supplies from within and outside the country. The first option is freshly slaughtered live beef which is currently being closely monitored because there are PMK attack.

Next, the second is frozen beef from Brazil, which is regularly monitored, until the end of the year its availability will reach around 20,000 tons. The third option is frozen buffalo meat from abroad, which by the end of the year will reach around 100,000 tons.

"So we will provide alternatives to the community and later choose which product is the most suitable," he said.

Arief said, regarding the supply of fresh beef from within the country, because there was a PMK attack ahead of this year's Eid al-Adha, the government was regulating its distribution tightening. Some areas that supply live cattle were forced to temporarily close their access to stop the spread of PMK, especially for the Jakarta, Greater Bandung and surrounding areas, namely, Banten usually gets its supply of cattle from East Java and Central Java because it is currently being attacked by PMK.

The National Food Agency in collaboration with the Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub) and related SOEs took steps to facilitate the delivery of live cattle from outside Java, namely from the City of Parepare in South Sulawesi Province using the sea toll road.