"We agree that we must have an early warning system for food and nutrition insecurity. This is essential, especially because we are facing the El Nino threat," Bapanas head Arief Prasetyo Adi said in a statement issued here on Thursday.
All regional governments must be vigilant and mitigate food and nutrition insecurity in their respective regions, he added.
At the Strengthening Analysis of the Early Warning System for Food and Nutrition Insecurity (SKPG) Meeting in Bogor on Thursday, he said that the system that will be developed together with the provincial, district, and city governments would have to be utilized to mitigate factors that affect El Nino occurrence.
This, Adi informed, would be in line with President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi's) directive to focus on anticipating the impact of El Nino by maintaining food security, which was conveyed during a limited meeting with several ministers on Tuesday (July 18, 2023).
Related news: Bapanas seeks to involve local gov'ts in food early warning
By mitigating the impact of El Nino, which would begin with building a digital-based system, it is hoped that each region will be able to determine its food and nutrition insecurity situation.
"It is essential because the system will be compiled based on various aspects of food security, starting from food availability, food affordability, and food utilization," he explained.
There are several indicators of the food security aspect, which include various data on food commodity planting areas and crop failure.
The food affordability aspect includes data on the prices of food commodities during a certain period, while the food utilization aspect includes data on under-five children's nutritional status.
"Of course, we are collaborating with the relevant ministries and institutions for fulfilling those various data so that it can generate conclusions categorized with three indicators, namely insecure, alert, and safe," he informed.
Related news: Minister should secure food stocks against El Nino threat: Jokowi
Translator: Kuntum Khaira, Raka Adji
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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