Need Imports Of 2 Million Cows To Meet Prabowo-Gibran's Free Milk Program

Illustration (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Food SOE Holding, ID FOOD revealed that 2 million dairy cows were needed to be imported to fulfill the free milk program launched by Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka.

Director of Business Development and Control ID Food Dirgayuza Setiawan said that currently the dairy cattle population in the country is still around 400,000. This number is not enough to meet domestic needs.

"If we want to meet our national needs, we need to increase the population by 4 times from 400,000 to 1.2 million. That doesn't take into account the additional free milk program needs," he said after the CNBC Indonesia Economic Outlook 2024 event in Jakarta, Thursday, February 29.

With the free milk program for 82.9 million children, continued Dirgayuza, Indonesia needs to increase the existing cattle population by import. As well as an effort to self-sufficiency in milk.

"If all the protein is really from milk, then we need around 2-2.5 million active dairy cows. That will be the government who will come to make a policy so that the milk production sector in Indonesia can stretch," he explained.

Dirgayaza said 80 percent of domestic milk demand is currently met through imports worth USD 1.4 billion. The milk is imported in the form of powder or powder milk.

"Again, I don't know what the new president's policy will be like yet, but we believe he and his team will not let us continue to import," he said.

With this free milk program, he continued, the government will pay more attention to suppressing imports.

According to him, Indonesia can learn from Qatar and India, which used to be an imported milk market, has now succeeded in meeting domestic needs.

"We need to look at the history of our milk imports that were not this big, but in the past President Soeharto had domestic production policies. So, if we want to import, we must have domestic production as well," he explained.

Dirgayuza said that this free milk program is also widely implemented in various countries. For example, Brazil to Thailand.

This free milk program is not only in India or Brazil, but in Thailand it is already running, the Philippines has also implemented it. Malaysia for certain groups has run it. So this is not a program that Prabowo-Gibran proposed," he said.

"PBB through the UN WFP has even declared 2030 that the whole world should implement a free lunch and milk program," he continued.