Badanas Optimistic That The Government Will Distribute 10 Kilograms Of Rice Social Assistance

Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo is optimistic that the government will again distribute 10 kilograms (kg) of rice food social assistance to 22 million beneficiary families (KPM) from domestically produced rice, along with the entry of the main harvest period.

"We have ordered Bulog to absorb domestic production, because now is the time for us to absorb it, so that later the rice food assistance and the SPHP (food supply stabilization and price) program can start using rice from domestic production again," said Arief in a statement in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Friday, April 5.

Arief said that currently the main harvest is already large, where as of March the rice harvest is recorded at around 3.8 million tons, while in April it is predicted that the national harvest will reach 4.9 million tons. According to Arief, this potential can be a domestic food stock to supply people's food needs.

Even so, according to Arief, entering the main harvest period is also a matter that must be considered, especially how to maintain or ensure that the price of purchases of the government (HPP) for dry harvest unhulled rice (GKP) at the farmer level does not drop drastically during the harvest period.

One of the steps that Bapanas took to maintain the price of unhulled rice at the farmer level, said Arief, was to impose flexibility on Perum Bulog for the HPP of harvested dry unhulled rice to Rp6,000 per kilogram (kg) from the previous Rp5,000 per kg.

Arief further said that rice food assistance is one of the government's programs to maintain people's purchasing power and suppress inflation, especially rice inflation.

"For this reason, the distribution of rice banpang (food assistance) to 22 million beneficiary families (KPM) throughout Indonesia, has always been the concern of President Joko Widodo in every work visit to the regions," said Arief.

Badanas noted that the realization of the distribution of social assistance for 10 kg rice food as of April 3, 2024 nationally had reached 641 thousand tons for the distribution of the first period during January-March 2024.