Misguided Rice Management
Monday, 22 January 2018
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 riceas the staple food of Indonesias 262 million peop
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