Government Takes These Steps to Prepare for Potential 'Godzilla El Nino'

The government is strengthening the national food reserves to face the potential extreme El Nino or ‘Godzilla El Nino’. This is to maintain the stability of food supply and prices as well as to anticipate the impact of prolonged drought.

Deputy Director of Food Availability and Stabilisation at the National Food Agency (Bapanas), I Gusti Ketut Astawa, revealed that the Godzilla El Nino climate phenomenon, predicted to be strengthened by the positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) phenomenon, is estimated to cause a longer and drier dry season in Indonesia.

“The prediction of Godzilla El Nino has become the government’s attention. We, in accordance with the instructions of the Head of Bapanas, Mr Andi Amran Sulaiman, are ensuring that the resilience of the government food reserve (CPP) stock continues to be strengthened so that when needed, it can be immediately distributed to help the community,” he said in Jakarta on Wednesday, 25 March 2026.

The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) states that both phenomena are likely to occur simultaneously starting from April onwards. “As an anticipation in the food sector, the government is ensuring that the resilience of the government food reserve (CPP) stock continues to be strengthened,” he said.

He emphasised that with the solid CPP stock prioritising the absorption of domestic production, when weather anomalies occur, food intervention programmes can be implemented quickly and accurately.

“In the Bapanas report as of 25 March, the stock of strategic staple foods which are CPP and managed by state-owned food enterprises, both Perum Bulog and ID FOOD, is still adequate with rice as the CPP with the largest stock,” he said.

Meanwhile, other CPPs are also continuously strengthened such as corn, cooking oil, consumption sugar, beef/buffalo meat, chicken meat, and chicken eggs.

The current CPP rice stock at Bulog totals 4.08 million tonnes. This achievement has rapidly increased by 77.8 percent compared to the CPP rice stock condition at the end of March last year, which was still at 2.29 million tonnes.

“Most of the supply comes from domestic production because Bulog has carried out rice absorption equivalent to 1.24 million tonnes from early 2026 until today,” he explained.

Then, the CPP corn stock is around 144,000 tonnes, most of which comes from the absorption of domestic corn harvests. The realisation of domestic corn production absorption in 2026 has reached 101,960 tonnes.