Kebumen Becomes National Model for Data-Driven Rice Management

Kebumen Regency has become one of only two regions in Indonesia selected as purposive sampling locations for the Rice Journey Programme, an initiative of the Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs in partnership with the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).

The programme aims to build a data-driven national rice governance system to strengthen food security whilst supporting the realisation of food self-sufficiency.

This emerged during a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on Data-Driven Policy for Rice Commodity Governance, held by the Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs together with BRIN at the Trio Azana Style Hotel in Kebumen, Central Java, on Monday (27/7).

As part of the research, Grenggeng Village in Karanganyar Subdistrict was chosen as the study location. The village is considered to have productive paddy fields, an active farming community, adequate access, and the capacity to represent both the potential and the challenges of the agricultural sector in Kebumen Regency.

Suhanto, Special Staff to the Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs, said Indonesia currently records a rice surplus of 5.23 million tonnes, the highest achievement in history. According to him, the Rice Journey Programme is a strategic government step towards strengthening decision-making in the food sector.

“Indonesia currently records a rice surplus of 5.23 million tonnes, the highest achievement in its history. The Rice Journey Programme is a strategic government step towards strengthening decision-making in the food sector,” said Suhanto in a statement on Tuesday (28/7/2026).

Through cooperation with BRIN, the government is developing the Executive Decision Dashboard Rice Journey, a Decision Support System (DSS) that integrates rice commodity data from upstream to downstream, spanning cultivation, harvest, milling, stocks, distribution, markets, and consumption.

The dashboard will not only display current conditions but will also be capable of producing risk analyses, simulations of various scenarios, and data-driven policy recommendations. The system is also projected to serve as an early warning system for monitoring national rice production conditions, enabling the government to take action more quickly and precisely.

The Deputy Regent of Kebumen, Zaeni Miftah, welcomed the central government’s trust in selecting Kebumen as one of the pilot regions for the programme.

As the eighth-largest rice producer in Central Java, Kebumen is considered to have significant potential as a food basket. The regional government is therefore continuing to boost productivity through the provision of agricultural machinery, expanding the planted area towards a target of 170,000 hectares, and developing pumped irrigation systems so that farmers can increase planting intensity from twice to three times a year.

Zaeni also hopes that Bulog’s absorption of farmers’ unhusked rice can continue to be increased. According to him, unhusked rice production in Kebumen has already exceeded local consumption needs, so optimising the uptake of harvests will improve farmers’ welfare whilst strengthening national food security.

In implementing the Rice Journey Programme, each regional government organisation (OPD) is expected to provide standardised, integrated, and interoperable data. The Communication and Informatics Office acts as the data custodian, preparing data integration, metadata, and the data exchange architecture between regional government units.

For information, the FGD was attended by the Deputy Regent of Kebumen, the Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs’ Special Staff, the Special Advisor on Maritime Economy at the ministry, the Deputy Assistant for Food Price Stabilisation, the Head of BRIN’s Public Policy Research Centre, BRIN’s research team, state logistics company Bulog, BPS Kebumen, the Assistant for Economic and Development Affairs at the Kebumen Regional Secretariat, relevant OPDs, village governments, farmer groups, rice milling companies, and various other stakeholders.

The programme is expected to become a model for rice commodity data management that can be applied across Indonesian regions to strengthen national food security through more accurate, data-driven policies.