South Kalimantan Government Pushes Local Food for Free Nutritious Meal Programme

The Provincial Government of South Kalimantan is encouraging the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) and the Nutrition Service Fulfilment Unit (SPPG) to optimise the use of various local foods as the menu for the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme. This step is taken as a strategy to accelerate the reduction of stunting rates and the early handling of malnutrition in the region.

Head of the South Kalimantan Marine and Fisheries Service, Rusdi Hartono, stated that his party has coordinated and proposed that the BGN and SPPG prioritise the diversity of local foods typical of South Kalimantan. According to him, using local ingredients will make the menu more familiar to students.

"Using local food as the MBG menu is preferred by students, thus it can reduce the amount of leftover food and menu rejection in the field," Rusdi said on Saturday.

Rusdi assured that various local foods, especially those based on fish, have very high nutritional value. This quality is proven by how often South Kalimantan’s speciality dishes win competitions at the regional and national levels, with the main assessment criteria being nutritional aspects.

Besides the nutritional factor, the use of local ingredients is considered to provide economic advantages for the SPPG due to their abundant availability and more affordable prices. Several types of local fish have been proposed as main menu items.

Chairperson of the South Kalimantan PKK Driving Team, Fathul Jannah, added that innovation in processing and presentation is key to making fish-based foods liked by children and toddlers. She made this statement on the sidelines of an all-fish cooking competition in South Kalimantan.

"With good processing, local food including fish-based ingredients will be very much liked by children. This menu is very suitable to be applied as the MBG menu to suppress stunting rates," said Fathul Jannah.

In the competition, three food categories were focused on: family menus, toddler menus, and children’s snacks. Fathul emphasised that the campaign for consuming nutritious food based on local ingredients will continue to be intensified to the remotest areas.