[songyou]

2018, January 22 - 28 --- Tempo

The debate over whether or not Indonesia needs to import rice should not have taken place. As long as the government maintained a valid national rice data, rice policy confusion need not have led to the embarrassing stage it has reached today: mutual accusations between ministries. It is quite saddening because this is not the first time that such bickering has occurred. The furore began when Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman stated that Indonesia has a rice surplus last year, which would continue this year. The claim turned out to be unreasonable: in reality, rice supply on the market was so limited, it triggered a price hike. The rocketing price has prompted the trade ministry to import 500,000 tons of rice by the end of this month. The muddled data on rice -- as the staple food of Indonesia's 262 million people -- is central to the bad management of the national rice affairs. The agriculture ministry, for instance, said that rice production covered a total area of 16.4 million hectares, with remaining stock of a million tons at the end of 2017.

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