Government through the National Logistics Agency (BULOG) guarantees the availability of rice stock until July 2019. Therefore, over the next six months, there would be no rice imports. In coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Statistics and the Joint Farmers Group, related to mapping of harvest areas throughout Indonesia, targeted uptake of up to 1.8 million tons of rice until July 2019.
BULOG has emptied several warehouses in the rice production surplus area to accommodate absorption from farmers by conducting market operations. Even so, the absorption target of 1.8 million tons still takes into account the benefits for farmers. Reportedly, BULOG’s rice stock has reached 2.1 million tons, with 1.7 million tons being imported rice.
By conducting massive market operations, estimated that it will reduce the maximum to 600 thousand tons. It means, the availability of stock plus new absorption reaching 1.8 million ton, can make BULOG’s stock of more than 3 million tons.
Despite having an abundance of rice stocks, rice imports from January-November 2018 have reached 2.2 million tons. The previous year, Indonesia only imported 300,000 tons of rice.
