Vice President Gibran Encourages National Corn Production Increase Through Simultaneous Planting Movements

Vice President (Wapres) of the Republic of Indonesia, Gibran Rakabuming while attending a simultaneous corn planting activity in the Bantar Panjang Village area, Tigaraksa District, Tangerang Regency, Banten, on Wednesday. (ANTARA)

TANGERANG - Vice President (Vice President) Gibran Rakabuming Raka planted corn simultaneously in Bantar Panjang Village, Tigaraksa District, Tangerang Regency, Banten, on Wednesday, October 8.

Based on ANTARA's monitoring at the corn planting location, Vice President Gibran arrived at around 08.56 WIB and was greeted directly by the Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Andi Amran Sulaiman, Coordinating Minister (Menko) Pangan Zulkifli Hasan, Minister of Forestry (Menhut) Raja Juli Antoni, National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, Deputy Chief of Police Komjen Pol. Dedi Prasetyo, Banten Police Chief Inspector General Pol Hengki, Banten Governor Andra Soni, and Tangetang Regent Moch Maesyal Rasyid.

Arriving at the planting site, the Vice President received reports from several Polri officials and local governments about the general picture of agricultural progress, land, plant varieties, and planting methods.

Furthermore, Vice President Gibran carried out a hybrid corn planting activity which is a type of corn with natural genetic resilience to ills that can save production costs by using a tractor.

On that occasion, the Vice President also handed over aid for agricultural and basic food production facilities from the National Police to the surrounding community.

The vice president then carried out monitoring to several agricultural processed booths and products of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) typical of the Tangerang Regency area and witnessed the implementation of health checks and the distribution of free vitamins.

For information, the simultaneous corn planting in the fourth quarter initiated by the National Police was carried out on an area of 50 hectares as a result of cooperation with the Banten regional government.

In this activity, the National Police also dispatched 1,268 tons of corn simultaneously to be absorbed by Bulog throughout Indonesia.

In this simultaneous corn planting, the National Police handed over assistance to all agricultural production suggestions (sapprotan), such as seeds, fertilizers, water pumps and piping, factories for post-harvest.

National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo said the corn planting movement was intended to support the strengthening of domestic food security. From 2020 to 2024, the National Police ranks have contributed to the success of food self-sufficiency with the production of 1.3 million tons of corn.

"Alhamdulillah, hopefully we can survive not to import until the end of 2025. Not only that, the increase in production also contributes to strengthening the government's food situation," he explained.

The results of this cooperation in increasing food supply, he continued, have helped Bulog to optimize corn procurement reaching 82,413 tons or the highest in the last 9 years.

"As for our target, namely to help meet the target of implementing 1 million tons of corn by Bulog, where the shortage of the current Bulog procurement achievement is expected to be killed from the fourth quarter of the corn harvest," he said.