This was announced by Yudi Sastro, Director General of Food Crops at the Ministry of Agriculture, after joining a corn harvest in Bantul, Yogyakarta, on Saturday.
“The majority of corn we grow in Indonesia is feed corn,” Sastro said. “God willing, even though our demand for feed corn is high, we ensured that there will be no imports this year.”
The decision not to import corn has been supported by collaboration with the National Police (Polri) to cultivate corn over 1 million hectares of land across the country.
Sastro said that the national corn feed supply remains secure. While he did not disclose exact figures, he said that, like rice production, corn production has doubled this year.
“In fact, we have already started exporting, in collaboration with Polri. In West Kalimantan, we have exported corn through Surabaya, West Nusa Tenggara, and Gorontalo,” he added.
The annual demand for corn feed in Indonesia is approximately 15 million tons, while the government is targeting domestic production of 16 to 17 million tons.
“Therefore, we can ensure that there is no need to import feed corn. What we are still importing is food-grade corn, but even that goes through downstream processing and is then re-exported, so we are gaining greater added value,” Sastro said.
To support the drive for national food self-sufficiency, the government plans to involve various ministries and institutions in corn cultivation programs.
“Food self-sufficiency is not the responsibility of one ministry, it’s a collective effort. Currently, the National Armed Forces (TNI) is helping with rice, the Polri with corn, and local governments are involved across the board,” Sastro said.
“So with us together under one vision, God willing, we can achieve it,” he remarked.
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Translator: Hery Sidik, Kuntum Khaira Riswan
Editor: Anton Santoso
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