Agriculture Minister: Government Strengthens Independent Food Security

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman stated that the government is continuously strengthening national food security independently to maintain stability amid global geopolitical dynamics, without relying on other countries. “The world is facing a serious food crisis threat. Therefore, every country must strengthen its food security and must not depend on other nations,” he said in a statement in Jakarta on Sunday. He emphasised this in response to the global food crisis threat, which could intensify due to the Middle East conflict potentially triggering instability in food supplies and prices across various countries worldwide. The latest report from the World Food Programme (WFP) warns that conflict escalation could drive a record surge in the number of people worldwide experiencing acute hunger, adding nearly 45 million people by 2026. He assessed that this situation highlights food security as a strategic global issue, as rising energy prices, shipping disruptions, and increased logistics costs could trigger food inflation similar to previous crises. He explained that rising energy prices, disruptions to international shipping routes, and escalating logistics costs could spark global food inflation, as occurred during the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. The impact of conflicts is not only felt in war zones but spreads worldwide through global supply chains. Countries reliant on food imports are the most vulnerable to price surges and supply shortages. The current government agricultural development programmes do not only focus on increasing production but also on building a strong, modern, and sustainable agricultural system. “We must be optimistic. Indonesia has land, water, climate, and human resources. If all are maximised, self-sufficiency is not a dream, and becoming the world’s food granary is not impossible; it would be a mistake to let this strength go to waste,” he said. The strategy for increasing production through simultaneous intensification and extensification programmes, he said, has already shown results last year when Indonesia successfully achieved rice self-sufficiency. Intensification is carried out by enhancing land productivity with superior seeds, agricultural mechanisation, pump irrigation, and increasing the cropping index, while extensification is achieved through the rice field creation programme and optimisation of swamp land as new production sources. “Absolute independence, absolute self-sufficiency. We are not only increasing productivity of existing land but also opening new land through rice field creation and swamp land optimisation. We must optimise everything. Production must rise significantly,” said Amran. The government is also carrying out major reforms in the agricultural sector by issuing 13 Presidential Regulations in agriculture—the highest number in history—and revoking around 500 internal regulations deemed to hinder the acceleration of national agricultural programmes. He said the most significant reform occurred in fertiliser governance. Previously, fertiliser distribution involved hundreds of regulations and multi-layered approvals across regions; now, the mechanism has been streamlined into a direct channel from the Ministry of Agriculture to Pupuk Indonesia and then to farmers. The impact, he said, is substantial: fertiliser costs have dropped by up to 20 percent, and fertiliser volume has increased by 700,000 tonnes without additional state budget burden. In addition to deregulation, agricultural modernisation transformation is key to boosting national production. Agricultural mechanisation enables up to 90 percent labour efficiency, accelerates planting and harvesting processes, and pushes the cropping index from one to two or three plantings per year. This efficiency reduces production costs by up to 50 percent and directly impacts farmers’ welfare. National rice production is in surplus, reaching around 34.7 million tonnes or an increase of about 13 percent compared to the previous year, while the government’s rice reserves (CBP) currently exceed 4 million tonnes and are optimistically expected to continue rising in the coming months. To strengthen long-term production, the government is also running a swamp land optimisation programme as a national production expansion strategy. The government has begun revitalising hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in Kalimantan with modern irrigation systems as the initial stage of developing new food production areas in Indonesia. This programme is projected to become a new rice production source in the future. Through a combination of deregulation, agricultural modernisation, rice field creation, pump irrigation, land optimisation, and strengthening price policies for farmers, he said, the government is positioning the food sector as an anchor for national economic stability as well as the foundation for sustainable self-sufficiency. “We must not fear the global food crisis. On the contrary, this is Indonesia’s momentum to become a food-independent nation and the world’s food granary; we will turn the world around,” said Amran.