Food Agency Calls Ukraine War Opportunity For Indonesia To Produce Wheat

Head of the National Food Agency Arief Prasetyo Adi. (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Head of the National Food Agency (BPN) Arief Prasetyo Adi said the war in Ukraine and its impact on the food crisis was an opportunity for Indonesia to produce local food to replace the 20-30 percent gap in wheat imports from the two countries.

"For me, we take the opportunity to produce local food, then diversify consumption," said Arief as quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, July 14.

Arief said, based on data on wheat imports of 11 million tons per year presented by President Jokowi at the peak of the commemoration of the 29th National Family Day 2022 in Medan, North Sumatra, it provides opportunities for local farmers to fill millions of tons of local food.

President Jokowi said the supply of wheat from two conflict-torn countries, Russia and Ukraine, was hampered. In fact, these two countries are big producers of wheat in the world market.

About 30 to 40 percent of wheat production distributed in the countries of the world is in these two.

According to him, wheat in Indonesia is widely used to make bread which is consumed by some people.

In fact, Jokowi said, several countries were already experiencing food shortages and hunger due to the hampered food supply due to the wars between Ukraine and Russia.

Arief said that if 20-30 percent of the supply of wheat imports to Indonesia is hampered due to the war between Ukraine and Russia, then there is a chance of around 3-4 million tons of wheat which can be filled by various local food sources of carbohydrates in accordance with their respective regional wisdom.

"We can convert it to local food. So the carbohydrate source is not only wheat. It can be rice, sweet potato, cassava, yesterday the President said, local foods in the region, let's rebuild local wisdom," he said.

He said, there is a way for farmers to make local food wisdom a target market by adding diversification of consumption in this situation.

"That's why we now have several deputies and these deputies are currently making an inventory, so that in the next one or two years we can wake up faster," he explained.

Arief added that no country has a planting day of three to four months like Indonesia.

However, said Arief, Indonesia has post-harvest technological challenges, such as food storage and distribution technology to distribute food from abundant or surplus areas to areas lacking food sources or consumptive areas.

"Well, distribution is of course with the Ministry of Transportation and his team, Mr. Budi Karya, yes," he added.