PORTALJABAR, BANDUNG CITY - Acting Governor of West Java Bey Machmudin said West Java rice stocks were safe until Eid.

Currently the stock in the warehouse is still sufficient. In the calendar, Eid al-Fitr falls on April 10 - 11 2024 and at that time West Java will have a big harvest.

"West Java's rice stock until Eid is safe, and not in a deficit situation," said Bey Machmudin after a meeting discussing West Java's food security at Gedung Sate, Bandung City, Wednesday (13/3/2024).

The meeting with regional officials discussed West Java's long-term food security, as well as various problems with various solutions. Such as the scarcity and increase in prices of several strategic commodities such as chilies and meat.

To keep rice available to the community, the Provincial Government continues to communicate intensively with Bulog. "We continue to coordinate with Bulog to supply rice to retailers (modern markets)," said Bey.

According to Bey, the distribution of rice from Bulog to retail is coming in stages considering that the rice reserves must be processed first. "Everything has to be packed, so the quantity (appears) small," he said.

Bey appealed to the public to remain calm in response to the scarcity and increase in several commodities, aka not panic buying. "Adjust shopping to needs to avoid shortages," he said.

Bey also asked district and city governments to be more aggressive in holding cheap markets on a massive scale to ease the burden on the community, not just relying on the province.

"Cheap markets (should) be launched in districts and cities, so it's not just us (the province). Yes, but it goes back to each (district/city) budget whether there is one or not," he explained.

In the same place, Head of the West Java Food Crops and Horticulture Service, Dadan Hidayat, said that in the near future West Java would have a rice harvest lasting three months. "We will enter the harvest month, April - May - June," said Dadan.

Dadan said the total area of rice fields ready for harvest is around 200 thousand hectares, which will produce milled dry grain (GKG) on average 5.7 tons per hectare or a total of around 1.1 million tons of GKG.

"What the rice yield is, you just need to multiply it by 57.7 percent. According to BPS calculations, the milled dry unhull converted into rice is 57.7 percent," he explained.

For long-term food security, the Department of Food Crops and Horticulture will optimize rain-fed rice fields with the help of a pumping system. This system is planned to be tested in the April - September planting season.

"We will try to inventory the potential for rainfed and pumped rice fields. We already have data on 300,000 hectares and we can make two harvests," explained Dadan.

The rain-fed and pumped rice system is an initiative of the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture which is being accelerated by the provinces as well as district and city regional governments.