Bali Becomes The First Province To Pilot Partner Applications To Redeem Subsidized Fertilizers

JAKARTA - Bali has become the first province in Indonesia to be a pilot implementation of the Partner application for subsidized fertilizer redemption in order to make it easier for farmers to obtain fertilizer.

Deputy for Food and Agribusiness Coordination at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Musdhalifah Machmud, said that the selection of Bali as a pilot area was because Bali is known as a province with fairly rapid adaptation.

"Bali is a province with a fairly fast adaptation to various information and the application of various new technologies," said Musdhalifah as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, July 18.

The Retail Management System (RMS) or Partner application is a digital system that can simplify and speed up kiosks in processing sales of subsidized and non-subsidized fertilizers initiated by PT Pupuk Indonesia.

Musdhalifah believes that with this integrated collaboration from upstream to downstream between the government and all parties in the Province of Bali, the implementation of the Partner application will run well.

The implementation of the Partner application, he continued, is one part of the effort to digitize the governance of subsidized fertilizer which is the direction of President Joko Widodo and the results of a limited coordination meeting of a number of related ministries.

"The government is increasingly trying to get closer to fulfilling the 6T principles, on time, right quality, right type, right amount, right location and right price for farmers to fulfill subsidized fertilizers," he said at the event, which was centered at the Bali Provincial Agriculture and Food Security Office. .

He added, for 2022, the government has allocated a budget of Rp. 25 trillion for fertilizer subsidies which are expected to meet the needs of around 16 million farmers in the country.

Meanwhile, Director of Business Transformation of PT Pupuk Indonesia (Persero) Panji Winanteya Ruky said in principle the implementation of the Partner application is to make it easier for farmers to get subsidized fertilizer.

"Farmers just need to come to the kiosk with their ID cards to redeem subsidized fertilizers. In addition to convenience for farmers, Partners are also integrated with various stakeholder systems in ministries and non-ministry such as Himbara Bank, Ministry of Agriculture, Sharia Banks, BPK, and BPKP," he said. .

The Partner application is also a form of strategic initiative of the Ministry of BUMN and PT Pupuk Indonesia to become a strategic partner of the government in various efforts to digitize public services to the community.

"This is a strategic initiative to support food security by ensuring efficiency and transparency from subsidized fertilizers to farmers," he said.

The Partner application can be used for subsidized or non-subsidized fertilizer distribution and has an offline feature, so there will be no problem when there is a signal problem.

Meanwhile, Head of the Department of Agriculture and Food Security of the Province of Bali Wayan Sunada welcomed the "soft launching" of the Partner application implemented by Pupuk Indonesia.

In addition, the application has been integrated with the fertilizer subsidy system of the Ministry of Agriculture, particularly in the use of farmer data in the e-RDKK as well as the redemption of subsidized fertilizers by farmers.

"Subsidized fertilizer is very much needed by farmers considering that often the price of non-subsidized fertilizer on the market is perceived as expensive and sometimes very difficult to obtain," he said.

Bali Province, based on the preparation of the e-RDKK, has allocated 35,685 tons of subsidized fertilizer for Urea, SP-36 (820 tons), ZA (1,897 tons), NPK (23,420 tons), solid organic fertilizer (8,947 tons) and liquid organic (40 tons). liter).

Meanwhile, the realization of subsidized fertilizer distribution in Bali Province until June 2022 is Urea fertilizer with 16,326.46 tons (45.75 percent), SP-36 with 130.05 tons (15.86 percent), ZA with 387.65 tons (20 .43 percent), NPK with 14,017.84 tons (59.85 percent) and solid organics with 576.33 tons (6.44 percent).

Director of Fertilizers and Pesticides of the Ministry of Agriculture Muhammad Hatta hoped that the already good application would also be accompanied by the readiness of the human resources at each kiosk.