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Food security on the rise, yet pandemic takes its toll
From 2019 to 2020, the number of cities and regencies categorized as “food secure” increased from 438 to 444, while the number deemed “food insecure” fell from 76 to 70.
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A recipient shows free rice received at the South Jakarta Military District Command on July 19. The government, through the Agriculture Ministry, is distributing free rice to help people whose financial situation has been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
he Food Security Agency (BKP) has reported that the number of cities and regencies that attained food security in 2020 exceeded the number of those that lost the status in the same year, thanks in part to government support.
Last year, 15 cities and regencies posted a food security index reading that lifted them out of food insecurity. North Nias in North Sumatra, for example, recorded a rise in its food security index to 68.1 in 2020, up from 56.4 a year earlier. This regency’s latest score puts it 8.52 points above the threshold signifying regency-level food security.
At the same time, nine regencies fell into food insecurity, among them West and South Halmahera in North Maluku.
“We note that our food security has kept improving,” Andriko Noto Susanto, head of the center for food availability and insecurity at the BKP, said in an online event on July 14. “If we consider food security as resilience, our resilience keeps improving as well, so food insecure cities and regencies have been declining and the [number of] secure ones has been rising.”
In 2020, the number of food secure cities and regencies increased to 444 from 438, while the number of food insecure ones fell to 70 from 76.
Food security in Indonesia nevertheless took a hit from the coronavirus pandemic, as reflected in a 2.31 annual contraction in household expenditure on food and beverages outside restaurants in the January-to-March period reported by Statistics Indonesia (BPS).
While more and more cities and regencies are categorized as food secure, some one-third of them posted declines in their food security index reading, although the declines did not necessarily push them into food insecurity. East Jakarta, for example, recorded a 5.32-point fall in its index value to 81.99.
