Are you agree with Indonesia plan to import rice? Just like any other country right now, Indonesia also suffers from the high rise of food prices, especially rice, the nation’s staple food. This crisis has been going on for a long time and is getting worse during Ramadan since other essential food prices like eggs and cooking oil start to rise.
Even though Indonesia is also well known for its agricultural products, this country also long suffers from soaring food prices, especially rice. This problem started to become more political than before, since right before the general election, president Jokowi gave a social assistance program in the form of food materials like rice.
Indonesia Plan to Import Rice as It is Getting Expensive
The Indonesian government already creates regulations to keep food prices low but unfortunately food like rice still keep getting higher. Even though the government already promised to stabilize it, why does it keep getting expensive? We already collect the information through multiple media, if you want to know. Here is the reason according to the local government.
1. There is Extreme Climate Change
According to an Indonesian official, one of the main reasons why rice prices keep getting higher is due to climate change. Although this reason wasn’t believed by many Indonesians, this is not completely false. Rising food prices also happened around the world because of the phenomenon called El Nino and drought.
If you’re not familiar with this term, El Nino is a weather phenomenon that occurs due to an increase in surface water temperatures in the Central and Eastern Pacific Ocean which becomes warmer than usual. This natural phenomenon causes changes in global weather patterns, which have a significant impact on the climate in various regions of the world, including Indonesia.
For tropical countries like Indonesia, June-December is the hardest time for agriculture and farmers since it is a dry season. At that time, especially in December there was a little rain but there was a gap of two weeks that caused crop failure.
2. Rice Production Decreases
The Main Director of Perum Bulog Bayu Krisnamurthi showed rice production-consumption balance data as of 2023 and 2024. It was noted that rice production in the first three months of 2024 was lower than the first three months of 2023.
for information, BULOG is a state-owned public company which operates in the food logistics sector.
A total of 1.34 million tons of rice was produced in January 2023, followed by 2.85 million tons of rice produced in February 2023, and 5.13 million tons of rice produced in March 2023. Meanwhile in January 2024, there was only 0.86 million tons of rice production. rice, 1.38 million tons of rice in February 2024, and 3.54 million tons of rice produced in March 2024.
“This is what causes, one of which, we have anticipated, is an extraordinary famine, usually, if the season is normal, at the end of October-November, there will be planting almost evenly throughout the central area,” said Budi.
In fact, the same data shows that rice consumption during January-March 2024 is the same as the same period in 2023.
“It is estimated that the influence of the rice price will increase and starting in mid-March will decrease. So, now it is normal for high rice prices,” said Budi.
3. Farmer Productivity Problems
Beside climate change, there were also problems with farmer productivity in Indonesia, which included the need for fertilizer and land conversion. One of the state officials claims that Indonesia actually does not rule out land conversion.
Therefore, it is necessary that in the future there will be leaps and bounds in the context of food preparation on a more efficient scale.
For example, there is an inter-agency planting coordination system that has been established to maintain farmer productivity and food availability
4. Imported Rice Haven’t Arrived Yet
According to local media, Bayu Krisnamurthi also revealed why Indonesia plan to import rice. Bearing in mind that in 2024, Bulog will still hold a rice import quota to fulfill domestic stocks.
Bayu said, since the beginning of 2024, 650 thousand tons of rice have been imported. This is the realization of a quota of 3.6 million tons for 2024.
“Currently, approximately 650 thousand have entered or are still at the port,” said Bayu at the Media Gathering in Jakarta, quoted on Wednesday.
According to the data he has, the realization of imports for carry over from the 2023 assignment has been completed. Then, the plan is that another 350 thousand tons will enter Indonesia for the 2024 quota.
This figure has been agreed between Bulog and a number of supplier countries. So, if calculated, there will be around 1 million tons of rice coming in by 2024.
“350 thousand (tons) have been contracted. So that’s almost one million (tons of imported rice),” he said.
Please take note, there are 4 countries from which rice is imported such as Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and Cambodia where Vietnam is the largest country supplying rice to Indonesia.
Meanwhile, the Government’s own Rice Reserve stock currently stands at 1.07 million tons. He emphasized that there are no plans to increase the import quota further from the 3.6 million ton quota for 2024.
Previously it was reported that Perum Bulog as the official operator would immediately accelerate the realization of rice imports in accordance with the Import Approval issued by the Ministry of Trade for a total of 2 million tons of rice.
The import assignment from the government is 3.6 million tons, but the execution is in accordance with the need for distribution of Food Aid and other government needs and year-end stock is above 1.2 million. If domestic production increases, Perum Bulog will definitely prioritize domestic absorption.
“By increasing the import quota from the government, Perum Bulog will carry out its duties to ensure the fulfillment of the Government’s Food Reserves,” was quoted from a written statement from Perum Bulog.
Even though import is not always the answer, unfortunately this method will continue to be carried out until Indonesia can stabilize its food price. Let’s hope that they will keep paying attention to the harvest period and rice food balance, overcome the issue of shortages and rising rice prices so that people can access rice at affordable prices.
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