IPB's MBG Kitchen, Longing for the Thoughts of Sajogyo and Hariadi Kartodiharjo

The Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), Dadan Hindayana, has invited all universities to build and manage Units for Nutritional Fulfilment Services (SPPG) or nutritious free meal kitchens (MBG) independently.

“At the very least, have one SPPG first, and if possible, the supplies should come from the academic community itself,” said Dadan Hindayana, who is also an alumnus of IPB University, at the U25 State University Legal Entity (PTN-BH) Forum attended by rectors from 24 campuses in Makassar at the end of last April.

Several universities have welcomed the BGN’s invitation. However, some universities have firmly expressed their rejection.

Rector of Universitas Islam Indonesia in Yogyakarta, Fathul Wahid, is one of those who rejected the establishment of an MBG kitchen on campus.

According to him, universities must continue to maintain critical reasoning towards various state policies, including the MBG programme.

Meanwhile, IPB is one of the campuses that has welcomed the opening of an MBG kitchen on campus.

Although it has faced rejection from the IPB Student Executive Board (BEM), it is almost certain that IPB will build the MBG kitchen.

In general, the MBG programme itself often receives criticism for being seen as part of a centralistic-militaristic policy design.

Amid the polemic over establishing MBG kitchens on campuses, it feels as though we miss the presence of the critical thoughts of two intellectuals born from IPB.

The two intellectuals are Prof. Sajogyo and Prof. Hariadi Kartodihardjo.

Prof. Sajogyo’s thoughts, as the Father of Indonesian Rural Sociology, teach that problems of poverty and food cannot be separated from agrarian structures.

From this perspective, we can see that MBG has the potential to become a false solution in addressing poverty if it is done to shift the discourse on agrarian structural inequality to merely providing free meals for the poor.

Not only that, if referring to Prof. Sajogyo’s thoughts, then the first question when a campus, including IPB, establishes an MBG kitchen is where does that food come from and who produces it?

Based on Sajogyo’s thoughts, we can question the management of the kitchen designed based on militaristic logic.