President Jokowi Meets with Farmers in Central Java

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in a dialog with Farmers, Fertilizer Sellers, and Rice Milling Owners, at Diponegoro Sragen Sports Hall, Sragen Regency, Central Java, Wednesday (4/3). (Photo By: PR / Rahmat)

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Wednesday (4/3) attended an amicable gathering with Farmers Group (Gapoktan), Indonesian Rice Millers and Entrepreneurs Association (Perpadi) across Central Java and had a dialog with them, at Diponegoro Sragen Sports Hall (GOR), Sragen Regency.

On this occasion, one of participants who is a rice mill entrepreneur admitted that though his business have been running since 2001, the process to dry rice is still done manually because he does not own a rice drying machine.

“Well, I need to remind the owners of mills that in this modern era, rice drying machine is absolutely necessary,” the President said.

Furthermore, the participant told the President that he also uses additional fertilizers, besides using subsidized fertilizers. That makes the rice crop reaches 9.5 tons which selling price amounting to Rp500,000 per 100 kilograms.

According to President Jokowi, the farmers can earn around Rp47.5 millions with a working cost at around Rp15 millions in a cropping season of 4 months. It means, the farmers can earn  Rp32.5 millions, or Rp8 millions per month approximately.

Nevertheless,  the farmers told President Jokowi that subsidized fertilizers for this season were reduced by almost a third.

Based on the farmer’s explanation, the price of urea fertilizers per 50 kilograms is Rp90,000 , while non-subsidized fertilizers Rp60,000 per 10 kilograms. In other words, farmers prefer subsidized fertilizers to non-subsidized fertilizers because they are cheaper. However, this condition has contributed to the decline of subsidized fertilizers stock. (RSF/EN)

Translated by: Syarifah Aisyah
Edited by: Rany Anjany/Mia Medyana