JAKARTA - The National Food Agency (Bapanas) or the National Food Agency (NFA) has asked the General Company of the Logistics Affairs Agency (Perum Bulog) to actively pick up the ball to absorb grain from farmers' crops.
Head of Badanas Arief Prasetyo Adi explained that if you look at the previous conditions, farmers find it a bit difficult to go directly to Bulog, including the condition of the location of agricultural land that is difficult to reach.
"So that in the future we will direct Bulog to pick up the ball. This step adds to the absorption of grain/rice to Bulog," he said in an official statement, Sunday, March 12.
This ball pick-up effort, according to Arief, is part of the improvement made by Bulog. His party directed that in its implementation Bulog conduct contact farming with Gapoktan-gapoktan, so that production can be directly distributed to Bulog.
"It is enough to help us increase absorption while keeping the basic price at the farmer level from falling," he said.
Entering the harvest season, said Arief, Bulog has gradually prepared itself, one of which is building Modern Rice Milling Plant (MRMP) in 13 locations. Through this MRMP Bulog has a number of engine units that can be used to process grain, starting from reception, drying, then to color sorters.
"With this MRMP, it allows Bulog to absorb grain from farmers or Gapoktan. So Bulog's opportunity to increase its absorption is getting bigger because it not only relies on supply from milling but can also immediately absorb farmers' grain," he explained.
In addition, Arief added, his party has also provided these Food SOEs with a number of regulations or legal umbrellas that can support increased absorption.
Among them are letters of assignment for procurement of grain/rice from within the country through the absorption of 2.19 million tons with a target of 70 percent fulfillment at this March to May harvest. These absorptions can be carried out with various schemes such as the Government Rice Reserve (CBP) scheme, flexibility, or through commercial schemes.
In addition, in the near future Bulog will also be equipped with new regulations related to Government Purchase Prices (HPP). With the latest HPP, it is hoped that Bulog will have a good price to absorb so that it contributes to maintaining the balance of grain prices at the farmer, trader, and consumer levels.
"We will do these improvements gradually. If people observe Bulog, it should have been done a lot today," he said.
Meanwhile, this improvement step is inseparable from the commitment to increase Bulog's grain/rice absorption in order to fill the Government Rice Reserve (CPP) stock so that the CBP stock on hand target at the end of 2023 of 1.3 million tons can be achieved.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
