Badanas: Food Assistance For Handling Stunting Empowers Local Farmers

Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi. (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - The National Food Agency (Bapanas) stated that the government's food reserve distribution program (CPP) for food assistance for stunting management which has been rolling since 2023 until now has contributed to the empowerment of local chicken and egg breeders.

"This activity is not only aimed at solving the stunting problem, but also related to empowering chicken and egg breeders," said Deputy for Food Insecurity and Nutrition, Nyoto Suwignyo, quoted from ANTARA, Friday, March 15.

He said the aid package containing 10 eggs and 0.9--1 kg of frozen chicken three times was not only aimed at meeting food needs and community nutrition, but also in the upstream aspect, farmers' food products can be absorbed by the market at good prices.

In the program, said Nyoto, BUMN Food ID Food has a role as a supplier of market needs for food production as an effort to downstream food directed by President Joko Widodo to build a strong and sustainable food ecosystem.

Chicken and eggs from farmers are purchased by the government from BUMN and then used for the sake of stunting management, so there is a close relationship between farmers and their consumers, Nyoto added.

"One of the strategies to help chicken and egg breeders ensure that their eggs and chickens are sold at a good price, are well valued, so the presence of SOEs is there, present as offtakers for chicken and egg breeders," he said.

On the same occasion, the President Director of ID FOOD, Frans Marganda Tambunan, is optimistic that the food assistance program, which is now entering its second year, will further support the sustainability of independent small breeders.

Currently, there are more than 100 local farmer partners who are partnered with ID Food as meat suppliers and chicken eggs for stunting-prone families.

"Through this program, ID FOOD will absorb eggs and chicken meat produced by small independent breeders at good and stable prices according to the highest retail price in order to maintain certainty and price stability at the farmer level," he said.

The second phase of the stunting handling food assistance this year targeted a total of 1,446,089 stunting-prone families (KRS) in seven priority provinces, namely West Java 403,285 KRS, North Sumatra reaching 136,738 KRS, Central Java 345,514 KRS, East Java 374,197 KRS, Banten 92,654 KRS, East Nusa Tenggara 73,068 KRS and West Sulawesi 20,633 KRS.

Director of Commercial ID Food Nina Sulistyo said that the budget needs disbursed by the government for the program ranged from Rp400 billion per distribution period.

"Approximately the same as last year. We are per period of Rp. 390 billion to Rp. 400 billion," he said.