Bulog urges farmers to sell paddy at harvest age to maintain CBP quality
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Perum Bulog President Director Ahmad Rizal Ramdhani has urged farmers to sell paddy according to the harvest age to maintain the quality of the Government Rice Reserve (CBP), even though absorption is carried out for all qualities (any quality).
“If in the past the note was any quality, meaning the absorption of paddy in all conditions from farmers. But now it is added with the note any quality within the harvest age period,” Rizal said after the Meeting to Accelerate the Realisation of Funding for Paddy Absorption Equivalent to Rice at Bulog’s Jakarta office on Monday.
He explained that this provision is the main difference compared to the previous policy, which only emphasised absorption of all qualities without specifically stating the harvest age requirement.
According to him, the addition of the harvest age provision aims to ensure that the absorbed paddy comes from optimal harvests, so the quality of farmers’ yields remains maintained in the absorption process.
This policy is regulated in Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No. 4 of 2026 on the Procurement and Management of Domestic Paddy/Rice as well as the Distribution of the Government Rice Reserve for 2026-2029.
Rizal stated that this provision arose from previous experiences where a small portion of farmers still harvested paddy before reaching the proper harvest age.
He noted that such early harvesting practices usually occur due to the influence of seeing other farmers who have already harvested and obtained results, thus prompting decisions to harvest prematurely.
“Because of past experiences, there is still a small portion where paddy that is not yet time to be harvested has to be harvested,” Rizal said.
With this new regulation, Bulog encourages the entire harvesting process to be carried out according to the appropriate age so that the absorbed paddy yield has better quality.
In addition to changes in quality provisions, the government has also set a 2026 absorption target of 4 million tons of rice through the same Inpres.
This target is an increase from the previous year, which was set at 3 million tons and has been successfully achieved according to the government’s plan.
In the same Inpres, the government sets the government purchase price (HPP) for harvest-age paddy at Rp6,500 per kilogram (kg) to maintain price stability, improve farmer welfare, and ensure the availability of rice reserves as well as the sustainability of self-sufficiency in that commodity.
As of April 2026, Bulog’s absorption achievement has reached around 1.9 million tons equivalent to rice or nearly 48 percent of the total target set.
With this achievement, Bulog projects that the 4 million ton target can be met by the end of July 2026 along with the acceleration of absorption during the harvest period.
Meanwhile, the government rice reserve stock managed in Bulog warehouses during the same period is recorded at 4.727 million tons.