Anticipating El Nino, Badanas Prepares Additional Rice Aid For The End Of 2023 And Early 2024

JAKARTA - The National Food Agency together with Bulog have prepared additional rice food assistance for the end of 2023 and early 2024, in order to help the community in anticipating the impact of El Nino.

"According to President Joko Widodo's direction, the second phase of rice food assistance will continue until December, of course we will swiftly prepare it," said NFA Head Arief Prasetyo Adi as quoted by ANTARA, Saturday, October 28.

The extension of the aid distribution period, which was originally for three months, namely September to December, said Arief again, was extended until December 2023.

Then it will be continued until March 2024. This aims to maintain price stability, especially the impact of El Nino, which has been going on from September to October, can still be felt by the community until two months later.

Broadly speaking, the amount of stock that Bulog needs in stabilizing and helping people in need in the extension of rice food assistance this December is around 200,000 tons. Then the stock for January to March 2024 ranges from more than 600,000 tons.

"Then on the plan to continue rice food assistance until March next year (2024), we will also prepare together with relevant ministries and institutions as well as Perum Bulog. Detailed preparations, especially in terms of ensuring supply availability, must be focused," said Arief.

Arief further said that the number of recipients of food assistance was revised by the Ministry of Social Affairs to 20.662 million Beneficiary Families (KPM) every month from the previous 21.3 million KPM.

The sharpening of the accuracy of the data, he said, aims to make food food aid more targeted.

If there is a KPM that is not in accordance with the data, then a replacement can be made by the village/kelurahan government.

"So if there are complaints from people who have not been included in the KPM, of course they can immediately report to RT/RW or village/kelurahan heads who will then be verified by the local social service. This is because the criteria for KPM recipients of rice food assistance are poor families who are recorded in the Ministry of Social Affairs database," he said.

Arief added that the realization of the second phase of rice food assistance, which had been launched from September 11, to October 24, had reached 65.82 percent or 407,250,560 kg.

The distribution target until November is 618,687,480 kg.

Judging from the expansion statistics released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) on October 2, it was recorded that in September 2023 the monthly rice inflation (month to month/mtm) was 5.61 percent with a 0.18 percent stake.

The reason for the soaring rice inflation was due to the dynamics of rice prices due to reduced supply and decreased production due to prolonged dryness and El Nino.