BRIN Research: Free Nutritious Meal Kitchens Cluster in Java, Yet to Reach Vulnerable Regions

Jakarta - Researcher Yanu Endar Prasetyo from the National Research and Innovation Agency’s (BRIN) Population Research Centre has presented spatial research findings showing that the location of Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) kitchens remains concentrated on Java Island and in western Indonesia. Based on data analysis of 27,477 Nutrition Programme Service Unit (SPPG) kitchens across Indonesia, BRIN discovered a pattern where the distribution of these food provision facilities follows population density, much like the opening of typical commercial business locations. “The fewer kitchens there are in areas with high poverty, high stunting, and high food vulnerability, the fewer the kitchens actually are. Whereas based on need, there should be more there,” Yanu said during an interview session at the ANTARA Heritage Center, Jakarta, on Wednesday. Yanu elaborated that the findings were obtained after BRIN cross-referenced kitchen location data with poverty ratio maps from 500 districts/cities, stunting prevalence figures, the number of schools, and food security and vulnerability maps from the National Food Agency (Bapanas). He suggested that the government fully draw on State Budget (APBN) funding to finance kitchens in affirmative regions such as Eastern Indonesia, Papua, and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). According to Yanu, these vulnerable areas cannot be entirely handed over to private sector Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding schemes, whose amounts and sustainability tend to fluctuate and are burdened by high infrastructure investment costs. “Regions that truly need state intervention, that is where the APBN should be used. Regions that do not need much APBN funding, CSR or non-APBN funds can be used. I think that is what needs to be reformed by colleagues at the National Nutrition Agency (BGN),” he stated. Besides reforming funding governance, BRIN also recommends creating a special kitchen model for Disadvantaged, Frontier, and Outermost (3T) regions, considering that the conventional kitchen model on Java cannot be uniformly applied to target interior areas. Yanu assessed that innovative interventions, such as introducing mobile kitchens adapted to the geographical conditions of archipelagic regions, would be far more effective in sustainably distributing nutritional benefits to children across the nation.