JAKARTA - The Director General of Food Crops of the Ministry of Agriculture, Suwandi, said that the distribution of people's business loans (KUR) in the agricultural sector since the beginning of 2022 has reached Rp. 65 trillion.
Suwandi added that this amount had exceeded the distribution of agricultural KUR in 2020 which amounted to Rp55 trillion.
"In 2020, Rp. 55 trillion was accessed by three million farmers. In 2021 it was Rp. 85 trillion, in 2022 it has reached Rp. 65 trillion," he said as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, August 3.
He explained that the distribution of KUR is mostly accessed by farmers in the food crops, horticulture, plantation and livestock sub-sectors.
The agricultural KUR facility is a government program that cooperates with the association of state banks to provide low interest loans to farmers with a nominal value of under Rp. 100 million and without collateral.
Suwandi said the Ministry of Agriculture also implemented five other policy strategies to develop the domestic agricultural sector, in addition to distributing KUR.
"The first is to increase production capacity through the expansion of new planting areas, there is a Food Estate, integrated farming of rice, corn and others. There is no idle land, vacant land, so that it can increase production capacity, enough food is available," he said.
In addition, the second is the diversification of local foods such as cassava, sorghum, taro, sweet potatoes to be boosted production in each region.
The government mapped out superior local food production in each region, such as sweet potato in West Java, taro in Banten, sorghum in NTT, and sago in Papua.
Third, namely the preparation of a food reserve logistics system. "All warehouses, barns are available in every area at the household, village, sub-district, district level. And for the national level, it is in Bulog," said Suwandi.
Another strategy is the application of smart farming or modern agriculture based on information technology and mechanization.
Suwandi said that the application of technology in the agricultural sector is starting to be widely used by millennial farmers.
While the fifth is a threefold export program in which each district must have products exported.
Suwandi admitted that the Ministry of Agriculture has established partnerships with diaspora abroad in order to open up international markets for Indonesian food products.
"There is a program to bring diaspora abroad, please open the market, we are partners, look for the slightest opportunity to be able to export," he said.
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