Pupuk Indonesia Invests IDR 116 Trillion To Increase Production Capacity

President Director of Pupuk Indonesia, Rahmad Pribadi. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - PT Pupuk Indonesia (Persero) will invest IDR 116 trillion to increase production capacity.

The investment funds will be used to complete the mega project for the construction of the Fakfak Fertilizer Industrial Estate in Fakfak Regency, West Papua.

"We will use part of the investment funds to open a new fertilizer industrial area, namely our mega project in Fakfak, West Papua and God willing, we will increase our production capacity," said Pupuk Indonesia President Director Rahmad Pribadi as reported by ANTARA, Friday, March 21.

Rahmad said that the addition of production capacity is an important step to ensure the availability of fertilizers that are urgently needed to achieve food self-sufficiency.

According to him, the achievement of food self-sufficiency in a country is closely related to the condition of the fertilizer industry in the country.

Indonesia, he said, is one real example of a country that has achieved food self-sufficiency because it focuses on developing its fertilizer industry.

Rahmad said that Indonesia managed to achieve self-sufficiency in rice for the first time in 1984. This achievement, he said, could not be separated from the development of the fertilizer industry, which first started in 1959 at PT Pupuk Sriwidjaja Palembang (Pusri) to the construction of PT Factory Iskandar Muda (PIM) in Aceh in 1982.

"In 1984, Indonesia achieved self-sufficiency in rice starting with the movement to develop the fertilizer industry in 1959 in Pusri. Since 1982 until now there has been no new regional development, whereas in 2045, the Indonesian population will grow to 324 million people, meaning the national rice demand will reach 37 tons or an increase of 6 million tons," said Rahmad.

He emphasized that the role of fertilizer in increasing agricultural productivity is vital. Fertilizer contributes about 62 percent to agricultural productivity.

Therefore, the achievement of food self-sufficiency will be very difficult to achieve without the availability of sufficient fertilizer.

"So it is super significant. Therefore, the key to increasing agricultural productivity, one of the main things is ensuring the availability and affordability of fertilizers," he explained.

In addition to ensuring production capacity, Rahmad said that Pupuk Indonesia also supports food self-sufficiency by ensuring the affordability of fertilizers for farmers.

Affordability of fertilizers, he said, was carried out by ensuring the distribution of reliable and accountable subsidized fertilizers.

To achieve this, Pupuk Indonesia has digitized kiosks through i-Pubers that make it easier to redeem with ID cards, as well as real-time supervision through the command center for distribution on target.

"So we have implemented digitization in all kiosks which reaches more than 27 thousand, with digitization we can already see every 'grain' of fertilizer loaded on the ship, we can see the data, we can see the visuals, the ship moves with GPS, then enters the warehouses with CCTV, carried by the trucks, there is GPS up to the stalls," he said.