Badanas Calls El Nino Threatens National Food Security

Illustration of foodstuffs (ANTARA)

BOGOR - Elnino that triggers drought must be anticipated as early as possible so as not to have a significant impact on food and nutrition security. Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas/National Food Agency) Arief Prasetyo Adi said it is necessary to build a strong synergy between the central and regional governments, as well as related stakeholders. "We agree that we must have an early warning system for food and nutrition insecurity. This is important especially because we face the threat of El Nino. So each region must be vigilant and carry out food and nutrition mitigation in its respective regions." said Arief in Bogor, Thursday, July 20.Arief asserted that the NFA-built Food and Nutrition Insecurity System together with the provincial and city governments became an early warning system that should be used to mitigate factors that affect the occurrence of el nino. "So I want the mother who is at the technical level in the province and city district to really understand this SKPG. So that the resulting data can be accounted for and utilized later to anticipate the occurrence of food and nutrition insecurity." said Arief. This is in line with President Joko Widodo's directives in the Joint Limited Meeting of a number of Advanced Indonesian Cabinet Ministers led by President Joko Widodo, on Tuesday at the State Palace, Jakarta where one of the focuses on anticipating the impact of El Nino is to maintain food security. "So this mitigation pattern we start by building a digital-based system, so that each region knows the situation and conditions of food vulnerability and nutrition in its area. This is important because the system is compiled based on various aspects of food security ranging from food availability, food affordability, and food efficiency. "Of course we collaborate with the Ministry and related institutions in the fulfillment of these data. The various indicators on aspects of food availability include various data on the area of planting and food commodity, the aspect of food affordability includes food commodity price data in a specified period. While the aspect of food utilization includes child nutritional data."

Arief emphasized that each region must understand the conditions of food security in their respective regions. He said, according to the direction of President Joko Widodo, leaders in the regions, both governors and mayors, are responsible for food security in their respective regions. The SKPG is based on a website that can be accessed through skpg. badangan.go.id and periodically produces data on food and nutrition-prone status, both nationally, provincially and city districts.