Badam Asked The National Police's Food Task Force To Keep An Eye On The Rice Price Of Bulog Market Operations

Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi (right). (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - The National Food Agency (Bapanas) or NFA has asked the National Police Food Task Force (Satgas) to oversee the highest retail price (HET) of Bulog market operations in the market.

This is to reduce the turmoil in rice prices in the market.

The HET rice medium market operation Bulog is IDR 9,450 per kilogram (kg). Meanwhile, for the Maluku region, and Papua, which is IDR 10,250 per kg.

Head of Bapanas Arief Prasetyo Adi said that his party received orders from President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to carry out massive market operations to suppress rice price fluctuations in the market.

"His orders were previously massive market operations. While we asked the Pagan Task Force to carry out surveillance," he said, quoted from Instagram @national ensemble, Monday, February 6.

Arief explained that the supervision of the Food Task Force is needed to ensure that the price of rice at the consumer level is according to the HET, which is IDR 9,450 per kg.

"Because if the retail price is IDR 9,450 but it is not guarded by IDR 9,450, it is useless," he said.

The national average price of medium rice as of February 2023 reached Rp11,660 per kg. So, the price of rice has increased by around Rp850 per kg compared to February 2022, which is Rp10,810 per kg.

Therefore, continued Arief, his party will disburse Bulog's rice stock to the market in the near future.

Meanwhile, Bulog's rice stock is currently 320,000 tons.

Arier said that the supply of rice at the Cipinang Rice Main Market (PIBC) had also succeeded in increasing from 12.900 tons to 14,000 tons. He said, Bapanas targets the total rice supply in the Cipinang Main Market to reach 30,000 tons.

"This continues to be disbursed," he said.

Bulog Will Be Farmer's Rice absorption

Arief said, Bulog will also absorb rice harvested by domestic farmers. Given that the harvest season will occur in Meret until next April.

The main harvest, he explained, is a condition when rice production per month exceeds the national monthly consumption or as much as 2.5 million tons.

"If the conditions are achieved, we can only convey that it is a big harvest," he said.

As previously reported, the Ministry of Agriculture projects that there will be a rice surplus in the January to March period of around three million tons.

The projection is based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) and data held by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo (SYL) explained that the data obtained by BPS is official data from the country which cannot be doubted because it has used the KSA method.

From the Ministry of Agriculture itself, SYL sambunh, data processing uses three methods, namely the standing crop method, regional reports and field reviews.

"So don't doubt BPS data. because the data has gone through a long process. Including KSA data, then we used three methods, standing crop, artificial intelligence, regional reports and came directly to the field. The result is the same, our rice is sufficient," he said in an official statement, Monday, February 6.

As is known, one of the ongoing harvests is in Sukamakmur Village, Sukakarya District, Bekasi Regency, West Java.

The current raw area of land reaches 47,000 hectares (ha), while the land in Sukakarya District reaches 3,420 hectares.

From this area, the harvested land reaches 423 hectares with an average productivity of 6.5 tons per ha.