Heaptalk, Jakarta — Domestic food security currently is facing major challenges due to extreme climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Coupled with global economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and food supply disruptions, these conditions have the potential to cause food crises, energy crises, and financial crises.
In response to that, the Head of the National Food Agency Arief Prasetyo Adi ensured that Indonesia’s food availability until the end of 2022 has been secured. “Availability until the end of December 2022 is sufficient. I urge all of us not to worry that Indonesia will experience a food crisis, but we must all remain vigilant,” said Arief during the national seminar of Indonesian Blue Food (11/10).
At the moment, the government is discussing the improvement of Presidential Regulation No. 66 of 2021 on the National Food Agency. According to Arief, one of the proposals is the addition of cooking oil, wheat flour, consumption salt, and fish, specifically for small tuna Euthynnus affinis, milkfish Chanos chanos, and mackerel Rastrelliger spp. in the duties and functions of the agency.
Arief said, “We feel that adding fish to the duties and functions of the National Food Agency is necessary and urgent as fish or blue food, in general, contributes to 50% of Indonesia’s animal protein intake, particularly in the eastern region.”
Fish supply is experiencing availability constraints which tend to fluctuate and be seasonal and are perishable in nature. Whereas fishery commodities have great economic potential as a source of livelihood for the Indonesian people, primarily on the coast, open job vacancies for five million people, and a source of foreign exchange of US$4.5 billion in 2021.
For this reason, Arief said that strengthening food reserves can be a critical strategy to protect food ecosystems from upstream to downstream by providing price certainty at the producer, farmer, breeder, and fisherman levels as well as at the consumer level.
Most recently, the government issued Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2022 on Government Food Reserves (CPP), which is an amendment to Presidential Regulation No. 48 of 2016. The regulation governs the type, amount, implementation, assignment, and funding of government food reserves for eleven types of food commodities including fish.
In addition, the National Food Agency also provides support for facilities and infrastructure to extend the shelf life of food products that will be utilized by food SOEs and local governments. In 2022, the government will provide nineteen units of facilities in the form of containers, cold storage, freezers, and dryers which will be placed in eight provinces in Indonesia.
“In the future, we will expect more units to be used optimally to store food products, especially perishable products such as beef, chicken, and fish,” voiced Arief.
With Indonesia’s prosperity and biodiversity, people do not have to worry about food availability. Arief believes that the country will take the lead globally, specifically in the food sector. Therefore, to achieve the goal, the National Food Agency focuses on building a food ecosystem with collaboration from all food stakeholders from upstream to downstream with a penta helix element consisting of academics, business, government, community, and media.
