Ahead Of Ramadan, Rice Prices In Bogor City Rise, The Council Encourages The Government To Stabilize Prices Through Market Operations

Illustration of Bulog rice (ANTARA)

BOGOR - Chairman of the Bogor City DPRD Atang Trisnanto encouraged the government to immediately stabilize rice prices which continue to surge. Atang emphasized that the soaring price of rice will certainly have an impact on the underprivileged.

The price of rice, which has now reached Rp. 16 thousand per kilogram, continues to rise ahead of Ramadan.

"The government must be serious and take immediate action to stabilize rice prices," said Atang Trisnanto.

The chairman of the Bogor City DPRD said that the condition of the expensive rice price if left alone would, of course, in addition to burdening the community, it would have an impact on the economic recovery conditions that are currently being built by the community.

"In some traditional markets, I have checked that the price of medium rice is currently rising, usually at Rp. 13 thousand, now it is Rp. 16 thousand, in several retailers," said Atang. Meanwhile, the condition of this rice price increase has actually occurred over the past few months.

Atang sees the impact of rising rice prices as also a very serious domino effect. One of them is for warteg entrepreneurs and restaurants where the current price of rice has touched an average price of Rp. 700,000 per sack, so that it has a sizeable impact on profits.

"I think some residents also had time to feel the difficulty of getting rice in retail, the government had to immediately make a scenario to stabilize prices," added Atang.

Based on data from the Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan), rice production since the end of 2023 has still shown a surplus figure.

Meanwhile, the surplus was obtained from rice production throughout 2023 which amounted to 30.96 million tons. Then, get an additional allocation of rice imports of around 2.7 million tons.

Meanwhile, in early 2024, he continued, the additional national rice stock was in the range of 1.31 million tons. It comes from the production of 910 thousand tons of farmers plus 400 thousand tons of imports.

"Seeing that the national rice stock is actually safe, but the question is why the price is expensive," he said.

On the other hand, the chairman of the DPRD also appreciated Bulog's steps in providing cheap food commodities through the Alert Logistics Agency Program which was implemented in the DKI Jakarta and West Java Regions.

Where, the Bulog Siaga program will sell Rice Stabilization of Supply and Food Prices (SPHP), Premium Rice and other food commodities directly to the public as a form of direct intervention in providing commodities to consumers.

However, Atang suggested, the Bogor City Government (Pemkot) should start considering carrying out market operations.

"One of the most effective in this condition is indeed from market operations, it seems difficult other ways to lower prices," said Atang Trisnanto.