The government has allocated Rp 18.4 trillion to the ministry’s 2021 budget. Around half of the budget is allocated to programs to ensure the availability and accessibility of quality food.

However, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo said Tuesday the allocation would not be enough to finance policies to ramp up food production, diversify staple foods, strengthen buffer stock and food logistics, as well as modernize the country’s agriculture sector, which employed the majority of the national workforce.

“The Rp 18.4 trillion budget allocated to the ministry in 2021 appears far from sufficient for the economy to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic in villages that heavily rely on the agriculture sector, and to meet the food production target set in the government’s working plan,” Syahrul said in a hearing with the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The minister proposed the additional budgetary funds as Indonesia was facing looming drought that might affect the country’s agricultural output.

In 2019, prolonged drought led to Indonesia’s declining rice production, which was down 13.2 percent year-on-year to 16.1 million tons in the first half of 2020, according to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Indonesia office.

The Agriculture Ministry has set a rice production target of 62.5 million tons in 2021, 5 percent higher than this year’s target.

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