Prabowo believes Merah Putih Cooperatives can solve various farmer problems
Jakarta (ANTARA) - President Prabowo Subianto believes that the Village/Urban Merah Putih Cooperatives (KDKMP) can overcome various problems that farmers have long faced, ranging from fertiliser and capital to the distribution of harvests to market.
“Farmers’ problems have always been the same: fertiliser, capital, and difficulty in getting their produce to market after harvest. A lot of harvests are damaged or spoiled,” said Prabowo in his speech during the inauguration of the operationalisation of 1,061 KDKMPs in Nganjuk, East Java, on Saturday, as monitored on the Presidential Secretariat’s YouTube channel.
Prabowo said that many farmers have difficulty selling their crops because access to markets is limited, especially in remote areas that are difficult for buyers to reach.
According to him, the presence of KDKMPs will help farmers because the cooperatives will have their own fleet of trucks and pick-up vehicles to transport the harvest to the markets desired by the farmers.
“Now the cooperative has its own trucks, its own pick-ups. It will not be dependent. It will deliver its harvest to the place it wants, to the market it wants,” he said.
Prabowo explained that the cooperative will also carry out various other activities, such as selling basic necessities and subsidised goods, distributing subsidised gas and fertiliser, providing affordable credit, providing logistics services in collaboration with POS Indonesia, distributing government assistance, and absorbing farmers’ rice yields.
In addition, the government will also provide affordable drugstores through cooperatives so that people can get medicines at affordable prices throughout Indonesia.
On that occasion, Prabowo said the government was targeting the inauguration of 30,000 cooperatives by August.
However, he said, if the number of cooperatives successfully inaugurated only reaches 20,000, this achievement would still be a rare feat in other countries within one year.
“Please conduct research, which country has built and inaugurated 20,000 cooperatives in one year. I think it is rare,” he said.
Prabowo believes that this target shows that the government and various state institutions are able to work extraordinarily if they have the will, strategy, determination, and cooperation.
Prabowo also invited the public to eliminate the mentality of being a weak and losing nation and affirmed that Indonesia must become a winning nation.
“We must eliminate the mentality that we are a weak nation, that we are a losing nation. No! We must not be a losing nation. We must be a winning nation and we will win,” he concluded.