Commission IV of the DPR to the Government: The Indicator of the Success of Food Self-sufficiency is the Welfare of Farmers

Farmer. (Unsplash-Sandy Zebu)

JAKARTA - Commission IV of the Indonesian House of Representatives appreciates the achievement of self-sufficiency in rice for the Prabowo Subianto government. However, the DPR reminded the Government that one of the indicators of the success of food self-sufficiency is the welfare of farmers.

"We appreciate the achievement of self-sufficiency in rice under the leadership of President Prabowo Subianto. This is the result of the hard work of many parties thanks to the support of President Prabowo Subianto," said member of Commission IV of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Usman Husin, in a statement, Tuesday, January 6.

"However, this success must not stop at the production figure alone. The state must ensure that farmers live prosperously," he continued.

It is known that President Prabowo Subianto stated that Indonesia officially achieved rice self-sufficiency on Wednesday, December 31. This achievement is an important milestone in national food security.

The self-sufficiency of this rice is marked by the absence of rice imports throughout 2025.

Usman explained that the concept of self-sufficiency in rice indicates that domestic rice needs have been met without dependence on imports. Thus, according to him, Indonesia should be more protected from global food price fluctuations, geopolitical crises, and international supply chain disruptions.

"In addition, self-sufficiency also opens opportunities for strengthening the national agricultural sector through improvements in irrigation infrastructure, fertilizer distribution, to the use of modern agricultural technology," he said.

However, he reminded that self-sufficiency is not automatically proportional to the welfare of farmers. Based on various data, said Usman, most Indonesian farmers are still in the low-income group, with limited land ownership and increasing production costs.

In addition, the price of grain at the farmer level is often unstable and often does not reflect the production costs they spend. Therefore, Usman emphasized, self-sufficiency must be understood as a guarantee that farmers' harvests are absorbed to the maximum at a fair price, not to suppress farmers upstream.

"If the country is self-sufficient, but the farmers are still poor, then something is wrong in our food governance," he said.

The PKB legislator from the East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) constituency also assessed that the main challenge after swasembada was to ensure the fairness of policies for farmers, starting from the establishment of realistic government purchase prices (HPP), strengthening the role of Bulog in absorbing grain, to protecting farmers from the practice of middlemen and market games.

"Without strong state intervention, the production surplus has the potential to lower prices at the farmer level," he said.

Usman also asked the government to ensure that there was no import of rice, either directly or indirectly, in the name of anything as long as the domestic stock was sufficient. He emphasized that weak import supervision could damage market prices and hit local farmers and undermine the self-sufficiency target that had been achieved.

"In the future, the government must make the welfare of farmers one of the indicators of the success of food self-sufficiency. It's not just about whether there is enough rice or not, but whether farmers can live decently, send their children to school, and produce sustainably," he concluded.