The harvest season is expected to start in late February.
"Why are the prices still high in January and early February? Because the harvest has not exceeded the production, and we all know, we understand," he explained at the Indonesia Policy Dialogue, which was held online on Wednesday.
The national need for rice is 30 million tons per year, Adi pointed out. Thus, 2.5 million rice is needed per month.
According to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), from January to December 2021, there was a rice surplus of 1.3 million tons. Then, in 2022, there was a surplus of 1.46 million. Thus, if totaled, there was a surplus of 2.7 million tons in the past two years.
If Indonesia's rice consumption per month is 2.5 million, then, with a rice surplus of 2.7 million, Indonesia should have had excess stock of rice for one month, Adi said.
However, there has been a scarcity of rice because the stocks of rice are spread in the community so the government is facing challenges in stabilizing food availability. Moreover, rice production in January 2023 has only reached 1.51 million tons and has not been sufficient to meet the country's monthly rice needs.
The NFA head said that at the miller or farmer levels, there has been a lack of unhulled rice.
Another factor that has caused rice prices to rise has been adjustments to production costs.
In welcoming the harvest season, the NFA is optimistic that rice stocks will become abundant again.
The NFA head has also tasked the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) with absorbing 70 percent of the rice harvest in the first half and 30 percent in the second half of this year to build a rice reserve of 2.4 million tons.
"Thus, if, before we all focused on downstream distribution for availability, next February until April, our focus, with the Minister of Agriculture and staff, is to carry out absorption," he informed.
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Translator: Kuntum Khaira, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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