In Medan, Jokowi Shows Off 3 Years Of Not Importing Rice

President Joko Widodo when reviewing red edible oil research in Medan, North Sumatra, Thursday (7/7/2022). ANTARA/HO-Press Bureau of the Presidential Secretariat

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that for the past three years, Indonesia has stopped importing rice from other countries. Thus, this commodity does not experience a price increase due to the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

This was conveyed during a briefing at the Peak of the 29th National Family Day in Medan, Thursday, July 7.

Initially, Jokowi alluded to the increase in food prices worldwide, which reached the range of 30-50 percent. However, Indonesia can survive because a number of commodities can be produced by themselves, such as rice.

"Alhamdulillah, our people, especially farmers, are still producing rice and so far the price has not increased. Hopefully it won't go up because the stock is always there and we haven't imported rice for three years," Jokowi said on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube show.

Jokowi said Indonesia usually imports up to 2 tons of rice each year. So, he thanked the Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo.

"This is no longer imported. The Minister of Agriculture is here, thank you, Minister," he said.

Even so, Jokowi asked for increased vigilance regarding food issues, especially wheat. Moreover, until now, Indonesia is still importing 11 million tons.

He said that this wheat commodity had experienced an increase in prices due to the war. So, this should be a concern.

"Be careful who likes to eat bread. Those who like to eat bread can get the price up. Why? Because there is a war in Ukraine," said Jokowi.

The President then said the Russo-Ukrainian war was the cause of the rising wheat prices because 30-40 percent of the commodity came from there.

In fact, Jokowi asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin about their stock of wheat. Ukraine's stored grain amounts to 77 million tons.

The stock was deliberately not exported by Ukraine for food defense in the country. While in Russia, there are 137 million tons of wheat that Putin deliberately detained. As a result of that, Jokowi said that many countries were affected by the absence of wheat exports.

"Now it has started, because the goods cannot get out of Ukraine, cannot get out of Russia, Africa and several countries in Asia have started what is called acute food shortages, which is called hunger, imagine," he said.

Therefore, Jokowi is grateful that rice is a staple food for people in the country. However, the president still invites regional heads to use the vacant land to fulfill their daily needs.

The goal, so that the nutrition of the community can be fulfilled. In particular, for children.

"If our children are smart and intelligent, it's easy for us to compete with other countries. But if our children are stunted, their nutrition is not good, their nutrition is not sufficient, well, in the future competing with other countries will be very difficult for us," he concluded.