Seven thousand tons of rice has been unloaded from one of the two Vietnamese vessels, while the second vessel carrying 4 thousand tons of rice "is unloading its cargo," he said.
The rice imported from Vietnam will be used to meet the needs of civil servants as well as military and police personnel, he said adding, it will also be utilized for the government's rice aid program and to shore up rice reserves for anticipating the impacts of natural disasters.
Currently, a total of 47 thousand tons of rice is stocked at Bulog warehouses in Papua, which is sufficient to meet people's demand for 6 months, Dharma said.
The Bulog-Papua and West Papua Office administratively covers rice demand in the regions of Papua, West Papua, Central Papua, South Papua, Papua Pegunungan, and Southwest Papua provinces, he added.
In a recent press statement, Dharma said that locals need not worry about the availability of rice.
He also assured of the availability of rice for civil servants as well as military and police personnel in Papua and West Papua regions.
The distribution of rice will be prioritized for mountainous regions considering their challenging conditions, he added.
ANTARA reported earlier that in response to the El Nino threat, head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas), Arief Prasetyo Adi, assured that the stocks of strategic food commodities are safe until the end of 2023.
Adi informed that for rice, Bapanas has tasked Bulog with absorbing 2.4 million tons of the commodity, an increase from just 990 thousand tons last year.
"Domestic production becomes a priority, so we have to maintain the prices at the farmers' level to be good, and in the downstream, inflation must be secured well because it will affect the community's purchasing power," he explained.
He said that in October, November, and December 2023, the government will provide rice assistance to 21,353 million beneficiary families, with each family receiving 10 kilograms of rice.
The provision of the rice assistance is a continuation of an earlier food assistance program, under which a total of 640 thousand tons of rice was distributed, he added.
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Translator: Evarukdijati, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Tia Mutiasari
Copyright © ANTARA 2023
