India Bans Rice Exports, Badanas: Doesn't Affect National Food Stability

Rice Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Indian government issued a policy to prohibit non-Basmati rice exports. This policy took effect from last July 20 as an effort to prevent the surge in India's domestic rice price.

Responding to India's policy, Head of the National Food Agency (NFA) Arief Prasetyo Adi stated that this would not significantly affect national food security conditions.

Furthermore, Arief said the government had prepared various steps to maintain supply stability and rice prices.

"We will make sure that Indonesia has sufficient stock, the calculation of carry-over from 2022 to 2023 is around 4 million tons, then from the KSA (Regional Sample Framework) we have production of more than 2.8 million tons in May, so we are optimistic that rice is safe," he said, in Jakarta, written Tuesday, July 25.

According to the President's direction at the Cabinet Meeting on Tuesday, July 18, said Arief, the Food Agency has prepared Government Rice Reserves (CBP) whose fulfillment is prioritized to come from within the country.

The assignment of CBP procurement of as much as two million tons is carried out through the importation of Perum Bulog from several countries, excluding India. In fact, according to Arief, it was the Indian government that offered to trade balancing with Indonesia.

"Tradet balance India with Indonesia lost a lot, so friends from India expect us to import one of them from India, so they are indeed asking the Indonesian government to balance or trade balance because our CPO exports are much bigger," he said.

To anticipate the decline in the number of rice availability due to El Nino, at that time President Joko Widodo had instructed his cabinet staff to prepare everything well, starting from early detection efforts, weather modification technology, to preparation of reservoirs and bore wells.

"One of the President's directives, the Minister of Agriculture is asked to accelerate planting and prepare production, as well as distribution of fertilizers, while NFA is asked to calculate how much needs and where they come from," explained Arief.

As explained earlier, the domestic rice production target reaches 30 million tons. Currently, Bulog's stock is at 735,000 tons plus the realization of imports is around 500,000 tons because absorption is still carried out from within the country and imports are carried out only for balancing.

The use of CBP in the last three months for rice food assistance of 640,000 tons plus Stabilization of 600,000 tons of Supply and Food Price (SPHP) has contributed positively to inflation control. For this reason, intervention will be carried out in the next three months to 21.353 million KPM, each as much as 10kg.

"The president also ordered, through an assignment from NFA to Perum Bulog to absorb 2.4 million tons so that the balance of Bulog stock brought to 2024 would be 1.2 million tons," he explained.