The areas where domestic rice procurement is carried out in quite large quantities are the Bulog work areas of East Java, Central Java, West Java, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sumatra, and Yogyakarta.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) said that it has purchased 120 thousand tons of harvested unhusked rice (GKP) from farmers through domestic rice procurement.

"In the 10 days of the Eid holiday period, Bulog is continuing to procure rice domestically. Until April 14 (2024), Bulog had absorbed around 120 thousand tons of GKP or equal to 64 thousand tons of rice," Bulog president director Bayu Krisnamurthi said when contacted on Monday.

Of the total GKP absorbed, around 46 percent was purchased in April, including during the Eid holiday, Krisnamurthi informed.

"The areas where domestic rice procurement is carried out in quite large quantities are the Bulog work areas of East Java, Central Java, West Java, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sumatra, and Yogyakarta," he added.

He said that the 64 thousand tons of rice equivalent that Bulog managed to absorb this year is still less than its average domestic rice procurement for the January–April period in 2021–2023, which stood at around 375 thousand tons.

According to him, this has been caused by late planting and harvests this year due to the El Nino phenomenon and other production problems. Statistics Indonesia recorded a 17-percent fall in production during the first quarter of 2024 compared to 2023.

"Bulog will continue to actively procure domestic rice during the April harvest season, which is expected to continue in May," he said.

The National Food Agency (Bapanas) has given flexibility to Bulog, namely in terms of the government's purchase price (HPP) for GKP at the farmers' level, from Rp5 thousand (around US$0,31) per kilogram previously to Rp6 thousand (around US$0.37).

"We have decided to give HPP flexibility to Bulog. This has been given so that Bulog can increase the stock of CBP (government rice reserves), which come from domestic production," Bapanas head Arief Prasetyo Adi said in Jakarta on April 5.

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Translator: Muhammad Harianto, Raka Adji
Editor: Aditya Eko Sigit Wicaksono
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