Planting Season Arrives, Nagan Raya Utilises TKD Funds for Paddy Field Rehabilitation
The Nagan Raya Regency administration in Aceh is accelerating the utilisation of additional Regional Transfer Funds (TKD) to restore agricultural land affected by disasters. The optimisation of TKD is being carried out so that damaged paddy fields can be replanted and farmer productivity is maintained.
Head of the Aceh Centre for the Application of Agricultural Modernisation (BRMP), Firdaus, said that the realisation of the agricultural assistance budget at the Aceh provincial level has reached 49.2 percent, or approximately Rp253.5 billion, out of a ceiling of Rp515.2 billion. This achievement is being continuously improved so that agricultural programme implementation can move faster in the third quarter.
“Our activity realisation is only around 49 percent. We hope that regencies and cities will immediately resolve the issues causing delays in the administrative process because this budget is already in the regencies,” Firdaus said in his statement on Saturday (15/8/2026).
The acceleration of the use of additional TKD funds is considered urgent because Nagan Raya has entered the planting season. A number of damaged paddy fields are also still in the recovery stage, including in Beutong Ateuh Banggalang District.
To that end, the Nagan Raya Regency administration is aligning the use of additional TKD with budget support from the Ministry of Agriculture. This step is being taken so that the budget can be directed to the land most in need of handling and its benefits can be felt by farmers immediately.
In the initial stage, damage data will be updated, priority locations determined, administration completed, and work plans prepared. This data will serve as the basis for determining the handling, ranging from clearing debris and rehabilitating land to repairing irrigation and providing agricultural production inputs.
Firdaus stressed that regional governments need to proactively communicate any implementation obstacles so that solutions can be found together. This is because acceleration depends not only on budget availability but also on the readiness of regional governments to execute programmes in the field.
He added that the need for acceleration is inseparable from the extent of the disaster’s impact on Aceh’s agricultural sector. Based on data from the Directorate General of Agricultural Land and Irrigation compiled by the Aceh Agriculture and Plantation Office, the reported area of affected paddy fields reached 57,171 hectares, with damage levels ranging from light, moderate and severe to land lost to the disaster.
For the people of Nagan Raya, paddy fields are a source of family income as well as a pillar of regional food availability. Therefore, the use of TKD needs to be focused on activities that can return land to productive condition as quickly as possible without neglecting administrative accuracy and budget accountability.
The Post-Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Task Force (Satgas PRR) for Sumatra also supports the Nagan Raya Regency administration’s efforts. The representative of the Aceh Satgas PRR team from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Imran, stressed that accelerating paddy field recovery is needed to maintain agricultural production and regional food security.
“We must think about how the recovery of paddy fields and agriculture can be carried out as soon as possible so that it does not disrupt agricultural production or Nagan Raya’s food security in the future,” he said.
To strengthen regional coordination, the Satgas PRR is also encouraging the establishment of a regency post so that damage data, programme implementation, field obstacles and community aspirations can be managed through a single point.