Vice President Ma'ruf Asks To Focus On The Ministry Of Agriculture Not Only Surfing But Prioritizes Increasing Rice Production Every Year

Illustration of rice (Antara-Yulius Satria Wijaya).

JAKARTA - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin asked the focus of the Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) not only on the rice surplus but also on the amount of production from year to year.

The Vice President conveyed this when he opened the National Working Meeting (Rakernas) for Agricultural Development in 2023 with the theme "Strengthening the Agricultural Sector as Control of Inflation in Facing the World Food Crisis".

"I ask for our focus not only on the surplus, but also on the number. We hope that the number of surpluses will continue to increase from year to year, meaning that rice production will also increase from year to year," said the Vice President, Wednesday, January 25.

"Based on BPS data, according to the Vice President, it is always a surplus every year. But it needs to be a concern, that the amount of rice surplus tends to decrease from year to year, from 4.37 million tons in 2018 to 1.74 million tons in 2022," continued the Vice President.

Facing this condition, the Vice President requested that the Ministry of Tourism identify the right food commodities in dealing with the world food crisis and focus on encouraging its development, including setting production targets and their locations.

"The burden on the agricultural sector is quite heavy. This sector must be able to provide food for more than 275 million people in Indonesia. Food availability and food price stability are critical issues that must always be managed properly, along with the increasing trend of population growth," he said.

Although inflation in Indonesia is within control, which is 5.51 percent in December 2022, the Vice President said the challenge of providing food in the future is getting tougher.

"Not all sectors have recovered from the pandemic, including global food production and distribution. The impact of climate change and extreme climate is very difficult to predict. Likewise, world geopolitical pressure has caused food prices to soar, as well as triggered a global food crisis," he said.

Previously, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) stated that the agricultural sector was one of the main sectors of Indonesia's economic foundation in 2022.

BPS said Indonesia's economic growth in the third quarter of 2022 reached 5.72 percent with the support of three main sectors, namely industry, mining, agriculture, which contributed to GDP reaching 66.54 percent.

PDB growth according to the employment sector in the agricultural sector in the 3-2022 quarter grew convincingly with a value of 1.65 percent (y-on-y), with a contribution of GDP in the agricultural sector reaching 12.91 percent. Agriculture has so far also absorbed the workforce the most, which is 28.61 percent.