Food Agency Boss Calls Bulog Transformation For Strengthening Indonesian Food Security

Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi. (Photo: Doc. Badanas)

JAKARTA The government plans to carry out institutional transformation within Perum Bulog.

This step was taken to support the realization of food self-sufficiency as President Prabowo Subianto vision.

Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi said his party supports the plan to transform Perum Bulog institutions.

According to him, this strategy aims to strengthen Indonesia's food security in line with the achievement of the world's food self-sufficiency vision and food barns.

"NFA has a plan to transform Perum Bulog, which is the direction of President Prabowo Subianto," he said in an official statement, Saturday, November 30.

Arief also emphasized Bulog's urgency in preparing post-harvest infrastructure in relation to domestic production absorption. He said the most urgent thing today in Bulog is to prepare infrastructure, especially the dryer and Rice Milling Center (SPP).

"If earlier Mas Wamen Agricultural said to get ready to absorb it, it means that the dryer and SPP must be ready, as well as a warehouse," he said.

In this regard, he said, the National Food Agency also monitors the procurement of rice for Government Food Reserves (CPP) sourced from within the country. The realization of domestic rice procurement carried out by Bulog in 2024 has exceeded the achievements in 2022 and 2023.

Where until the third week of November 2024, the strengthening of rice equivalent stocks sourced from the harvest of domestic farmers has touched the figure of 1.22 million tons. Meanwhile, in 2022 there are 994 thousand tons and in 2023 at 1.066 million tons.

Arief also revealed comparative data with the food sector corporations in India, namely The Food Corporation of India (FCI). According to him, FCI is very focused on managing foods of the type of granes or grains with large stocks and not for the benefit of the company.

So this FCI does have wheat and rice. If in India he grinis like that, want wheat, what do you want, basically grains. Then there are a lot of stock buffers, there are also agricultural products offtakes. Food sales are free market, but not for profit. The revenue is around Rp272 trillion. The central government's budget, food price subsidies, commercial loans, and bonds, as well as commercial sales. This is about FCI, "said Arief.

Meanwhile, the condition of Indonesia's production, especially rice, continued Arief, has not experienced an excess surplus such as India or other countries.

As a comparison, how is Indonesia's production compared to India and other countries, especially rice. Our production and needs are less. This is USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) data in 2022," he said.

For example, he continued, when it comes to India, there are more than 21 million tons of production and consumption. Then neighboring countries, Vietnam, the need for 21.5 million tons, the production is 27 million tons, so Vietnam is still more than 6 million tons as food reserves.

"So the order is absorbed production. If it can still be used as food reservoir, it's saved. The advantage is so that prices don't fall, then exports," he explained.

For your information, the Government's Food Reserves or Reserves are used for government programs to support the economy and food stability.

As is known, since 2023, Bulog has rolled out rice food assistance on assignment from the National Food Agency.

The food aid packages distributed are in the form of 10 kilograms of rice per month to each Food Aid Recipient (PBP).

In 2023, rice food assistance has been distributed for an allocation of 7 months to 21.3 million PBP.

With that, the total quality rice that has been disbursed has reached 1.4 million tons.

Meanwhile, in 2024, rice food assistance will be allocated for a 9-month allocation to 22 million PBP.

A total of 1.9 million tons was distributed by Bulog throughout Indonesia.

For this program, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in June 2024 confirmed that rice food assistance is one of the government's programs that contributes to reducing poverty.

According to BPS, the number of poor people in March 2024 was 25.22 million people. This has decreased by 0.68 million people to March 2023, which amounted to 25.90 million people.

There is also the implementation of a low-cost market operation program that Bulog is intensifying through the assignment of NFA. In 2022, with the Supply Availability and Price Stabilization (KPSH) program, 1.3 million tons of rice has been distributed.

Furthermore, the program name changed to Supply Stabilization and Food Price (SPHP). In 2023, the rice SPHP reached 1.196 million tons or 110.30 percent of the target of 1.085 million tons. In 2024, the realization until November 29 has been at 1.3 million tons or 93.12 percent of the target of 1.4 million tons.