"To face Christmas and New Year's Day, food prices and stocks are maintained as much as possible," he said during a hearing with Commission IV of the DPR with the Agriculture Ministry, the National Food Agency, and state-owned food companies here on Wednesday.
Food prices usually experience an upward trend ahead of religious holidays, he noted.
"In certain areas, there are always complaints about price hikes. Therefore, we need to be aware of this, and there needs to be anticipation to maintain the stability of food stocks and also its prices," the legislator said.
He also asked the Ministry of Agriculture to carefully plan a program to increase agricultural productivity in 2023 as an effort to anticipate potential threats.
According to Hamzah, the government needs to be realistic about production targets because of the potential for various kinds of obstacles in the field, including unfavorable weather such as long and dry spells.
He said he hopes the government will launch programs related to agricultural productivity at the beginning of the year without delay.
"What we talked about today with our target, which is also quite big, we hope that all of this can be realized by 2023. Therefore, this target must be started from the beginning of the year," he added.
Meanwhile, another member of Commission IV of the DPR, Azikin Solthan, also reminded the government and state-owned food companies about the trend of increasing food demand at the end of each year.
He asked Perum Bulog to anticipate this by ensuring food reserves.
"The trend of increasing food demand ahead of Christmas and New Year is expected to be anticipated by Bulog with adequate food reserve stocks," he said.
Earlier, during a hearing meeting between Commission IV of the DPR and the National Food Agency and food SOEs last week, head of the National Food Agency, Arief Prasetyo Adi, assured that food stocks were safe until the end of 2022.
However, there is a shortage in the government rice reserves (CBP) managed by Bulog.
The latest data from Bulog shows that the government's rice reserve stocks from within the country have reached 625 thousand tons out of a total target of at least 1.2 million tons.
Bulog president director Budi Waseso informed that 500 thousand tons of commercial rice has been secured from abroad, which can be sent to Indonesia at any time to ensure adequate rice stocks at Bulog.
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Translator: Katriana
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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