Deputy for Food and Nutritional Insecurity at Bapanas Nyoto Suwignyo noted in a statement from his agency here on Thursday that the average price of GKP has started to decline to Rp6,820 (US$0.44) per kilogram, from earlier at above Rp8,000 (US$0.51) per kilogram.
"We have now entered the harvest period. In several rice center regions in particular, the prices of unhusked rice at the farmer level have been slowly decreasing since February," he remarked.
According to Suwignyo, the downward trend in unhusked rice prices is expected to continue until the end of the main harvest period in April 2024.
He noted that throughout the March-April 2024 period, there would be a big-scale harvest of unhusked rice equivalent to 8.46 million tons of rice. This will generally be followed by a decrease in the prices of unhusked rice and rice in line with the increase in available food stocks.
However, he noted that according to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), rice prices still increased by 3.6 percent as compared to February 2024.
Nevertheless, the number of regions that experienced an increase in rice prices in the first week of March 2024 declined a little as compared to February 2024, namely occurring in 75.28 percent of Indonesian regions.
"Bapanas Head Arief Prasetyo Adi has applied relaxation of premium-quality rice retail price ceiling to Rp14,900 (US$0.96) for zone I, Rp15,400 (US$0.99) for zone II, and Rp15,800 (US$1.01) for zone III," he remarked.
Earlier, on Wednesday (March 13), Bapanas Head Arief Prasetyo Adi stated that his side will maintain the GKP prices at the farmers' level during harvests.
"We have to ensure that prices at the farmer level do not fall too much," he remarked.
Adi said that rice prices were high due to the increase in GKP prices.
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Translator: Muhammad Harianto, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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