Press Statement of President of the Republic of Indonesia after Inspecting Rice Harvest Area, Wednesday, 21 April 2021, in Wanasari Village, Indramayu Regency, West Java Province

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh,

This morning I am in Wanasari village, Indramayu regency, West Java province to directly inspect the harvest carried out here. First, I noticed that the harvest yield is good. It can reach 7- 8 tons. Second, the grains’ price has also increased up to Rp4.200. This is also good.

However, there were complaints from farmers. For the example, they complained about the price of subsidized fertilizers, which are difficult to find. This is indeed a positive insight. Second, during harvest season the farmers found that it was difficult to find farmworkers so that the farmers requested combine harvester machine. And I agreed with that. Hopefully, we can immediately supply tractors and pumps.

And our position is that we want to continue to build a better agriculture that has a better production. We expect that it will become our national food security. Of course, we also want to achieve food self-sufficiency.

The Government, as I mentioned before, is not in favor of import rice. However, because of many calculations, many flooded rice fields, and current pandemic, rice import based on calculation is sometimes needed as additional stock. Nevertheless, we have decided that there will be any import rice until June and insyallah if we could hold this situation and the production were good, we would not import until the end of this year.

That concludes my speech on this auspicious occasion.

I thank you.

Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. (AP/EP)