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Bulog told to absorb more unhusked rice from farmers
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Rice for all: President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo (right), Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman (center) and Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Eko Putro Sandjojo converse during a visit to a farmland in Boyolali, Central Java, on Oct. 29, 2016. (Antara/Aloysius Jarot)
T
he government expects State Logistics Agency (Bulog) to continue boosting the absorption of unhusked rice from local farmers to pave the way for the government’s target to achieve rice self-sufficiency.
"Last month [February], we could only absorb 2,000 tons of unhusked rice daily. This month, as of Friday [Mar. 24], the figure increased to between 19,000 to 20,000 tons daily," Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said Monday on the sidelines of a meeting to discuss the acceleration of the government’s unhusked rice absorption program, as quoted by kontan.co.id.
Amran said Bulog currently stored around 1.9 million tons of rice in its warehouses, enough to last for more than a year.
(Read also: Government has no plan to import rice this year)
Should Bulog be able to absorb 30,000 tons daily for the next three months, it will add up another 2.5 to 3 million tons of stock, enough to meet domestic needs until 2019, he claimed.
Bulog has allocated around Rp 30 trillion (US$2.25 billion) to buy unhusked rice from local farmers this year. Bulog procurement director Tri Wahyudi said that should the budget not be enough, Bulog would borrow from banks.
In the first 11 weeks of this year, Bulog has absorbed over 300,000 tons of unhusked rice, most of which has come from East Java, South Sulawesi, Central Java and West Java. (rbk/hwa)
